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Book 

Copyright K° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSI1. 



GREAT WIVES AND 
MOTHERS 



BY 

REV. HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT 




NEW YORK 

THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY 



CT32 05 
3 68 



copyright, 191 7, by 
The Devin-Adair Company 



All rights reserved by 
The Devin-Adair Company 



DEC 151917 
©CI.A479566 






TO 

THE GREAT MOTHER OF US ALL 

MARY 

THE MOTHER OF GOD 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The author does not deem it necessary to give a 
complete bibliography of the innumerable works con- 
sulted in the preparation of these popular papers. He 
wishes, however, to acknowledge his indebtedness for 
certain facts to the standard biographies, Butler's 
Lives of the Saints, various encyclopedias, and par- 
ticularly the Catholic Encyclopedia. 



PREFACE 

The following popular biographies were prepared 
originally for various societies of women. It has been 
the experience of the author that it is difficult year 
after year to get fresh topics for addresses to sodalities. 
In offering these papers to the public he has in mind 
first of all his brother clergy, hoping that they will find 
herein some suggestions for a series of interesting 
talks. More than that, he desires that the life of each 
of these great wives and mothers be known to all. One 
of the greatest glories of the Church is her noble 
womanhood. And to-day especially, when the world 
in many different ways is seeking to turn our women 
from the pursuit of the Christian ideal in wifehood and 
motherhood, there is need surely of recalling the in- 
spiriting stories of these women who sought first of all 
the kingdom of God. 

Hugh Francis Blunt. 

Boston, Nov. ist, 1917. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Mothers and Martyrs i 

Matrons of the Early Church 25 

St. Monica 44 

The Queen Saints 69 

St. Elizabeth of Hungary 98 

St. Rita 123 

Royal Ladies 148 

Isabella the Catholic , .176 

Margaret Roper .197 

Margaret Clitherow ... . . • . .224 

Anna Maria Taigi 250 

Elizabeth Seton 272 

Jerusha Barber 294 

Mary O'Connell 320 

Lady Georgiana Fullerton 341 

Margaret Haughery 367 

Pauline Craven . 380 

Some Literary Wives and Mothers . . . .396 



GREAT WIVES AND 
MOTHERS 

MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 
(126-313) 

FOR us that live in peace, with freedom to practise 
our religion, the story of days when men and 
women, and even little children, were persecuted and 
tortured, and suffered death for their faith, seems 
like the product of some wild imagination. Could 
men of flesh and blood like ourselves, to whom the 
very thought of murder is so repulsive, be so diaboli- 
cal as to destroy the lives of their fellow-creatures 
merely because of the manner in which they wor- 
shiped God? Strange, that of all hatreds, religious 
hatred is the most unrelenting. And of what crimes 
against humanity and God has that hatred been the 
cause ! 

Christ Himself was a martyr for the truth. He 
went the way of the Cross. Most of His apostles went 
the same way, laying down their lives for the Gospel 
they preached. As Christ had foretold, the day came 
when the enemies of His religion thought that they 
did a service to God when they put to death His fol- 

[1] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

lowers. So down through the ages love for Christ 
and His Church has exacted its toll of lives. 

Even in days when all has seemed peaceful for the 
Church, suddenly the persecution has come, and men 
have had to choose between God and man, between 
truth and falsehood, between life and death. And it has 
been to the glory of the Church that countless num- 
bers have died on the Cross rather than deny the 
Master, knowing that so to die was the sure way to 
eternal life. 

The Church has grown from the beginning by 
martyrdom. The blood of the martyrs is the seed 
of Christians. Its first saints were those who had 
been drenched in their own life-blood. And it is not 
strange that in that multitude, which numbered the 
old men, like St. Polycarp, the little maidens, like St. 
Lucy, there were also the mothers of men, mothers 
with the tender babe at their breast, mothers that loved 
their little ones, yet allowed themselves to be torn 
from them for the love of God and the salvation of 
their soul ; mothers, too, that even urged their children 
on to suffering and death, because they knew that the 
true glory of their children was not in worldly prefer- 
ment, but in the way in which they served their 
Creator. 

What an example for the mothers of to-day ! How 
many a mother devotes herself through all manner of 
trial and suffering in order that her children may be 
healthy, may be educated, may have a good place in 
the world, yet neglects the thing that is of supreme 

[2] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

importance — the sanctification of the souls of these 
same children. We may wonder at the heroism of 
St. Rita as she prayed that God would take her two 
sons rather than have them commit the crime of 
murder, yet is not that the true spirit of the Christian 
mother, who knows that it is the soul that counts, and 
that it would be better for those children never to 
have been born than to be false to their God ? 

And so, as we hear the story of the heroic women, 
wives and mothers, who suffered in the persecutions 
that afflicted the early Church, it is not merely to 
marvel at the strength which God gave to their weak- 
ness, but to be inspired by their example, to know 
that the better part is to seek and do the will of God 
for ourselves and our families, no matter through 
what trial the way leads. 

In the history of the Mother of the Machabees the 
Christian mother of the early Church had an example 
of loyalty to God in the midst of pain. King Anti- 
ochus IV of Syria had sought to paganize the Jews. 
He attempted to abolish the Jewish religion, and for- 
bade, under pain of death, the observance of Jewish 
rites. Altars were set up, and the people were com- 
manded to offer up sacrifice to the pagan gods. The 
majority of the Jews, however, remained faithful, 
and many of them laid down their lives rather than 
be unfaithful to their religion. This was 168 b. c. 

Among those who suffered death were a mother 
and her seven sons. They all had been apprehended, 
and ordered to eat swine's flesh, which was contrary 

[3] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

to the Jewish law. But they refused, even though 
they were scourged for their refusal; for as the eldest 
son said, "We are ready to die rather than to trans- 
gress the laws of God, received from our fathers." 
Then the angry King ordered that the frying-pans and 
brazen caldrons should be heated. He commanded 
then that the tongue of the oldest boy be cut out, and 
the skin of his head drawn off, and his hands and his 
feet cut off, while his mother and his brothers looked 
on, helpless, at the awful brutality. Still alive, he was 
thrown on the frying-pan to suffer long, agonizing 
torments. 

But the brothers and the heart-broken mother did 
not weaken, but rather urged one another to be as 
brave as the dying one. The second oldest was then 
put through the same suffering, and the third and 
fourth, and so till the youngest of all was reached. 
All the while the mother had watched her noble, 
strong sons going to their death, but she bravely ex- 
horted all of them to suffer for their religion, as the 
Bible says, "joining a man's heart to a woman's 
thought." 

"I know not how you were formed in my womb," 
she said, "for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor 
life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. 
But the Creator of the world that formed the nativity 
of man, and that found out the origin of all, He will 
restore to you again in His mercy both breath and 
life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of 
His laws." 

[4] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

The King, angry at his inability to break down the 
courage of the six sons, sought to weaken the youngest 
lad by swearing to make him rich and happy and 
bring him to court if only he would give up his re- 
ligion. But the boy was steadfast in his faith. Then 
he begged the mother to reason with her son and save 
his life. She promised to advise the boy, and then 
bending towards him, said : 

"My son, have pity upon me that bore thee nine 
months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, 
and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this 
age. I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and 
earth and all that is in them, and consider that God 
made them out of nothing, and mankind also. So 
thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a 
worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that 
in thy mercy I may receive thee again with thy 
brethren." 

And so the last of the sons went to his death, and 
the mother, who a short time before had seven fine 
sons, was now childless. But she did not moan. She 
was happy that her sons had died for God. God had 
given them to her, and now she had given them back 
to Him. And God blessed her by making her endure 
the same sufferings. Last of all she was put to 
death, and so went to be united to her loved ones. It 
is a sad, yet a thrilling story, a glorious tribute to the 
heights to which mother-love may ascend. 

With such heroism among the Jews, it is not sur- 
prising to find it also among Christian mothers. Every 

[51 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

age and condition of life has its patrons among the 
martyrs of the early Church. It is in this way God 
would teach us that all may aspire to sanctity. He 
has given the blessed boon of martyrdom to those of 
every rank; He did not forget the mothers. Some- 
how it is hard to think of a mother being obliged to 
lay down her life. How much good, we say, she 
could do with her family, if she were allowed to re- 
main with them. Yet we see women like Margaret 
Clitherow, in the persecutions of the Reformation- 
time, praying to God for martyrdom, even though it 
would take her from her small children. She had 
faith enough to believe that God could look after her 
children even better than she, their own mother. And 
through the persecutions of the early Church we note 
this same confident carelessness on the part of the 
suffering mothers to their children. It was God that 
counted, even more than their children. And what a 
glorious heritage it was to hand down to the mother- 
less child, the knowledge that she who gave him birth 
was a martyr and a saint ! 

So we choose from the long line of martyrs those 
holy women who were wives and mothers, in order 
that their example of steadfastness in the faith, and 
of seeking the spiritual welfare of their children more 
than all else in the world, may be a source of strength 
to others in the married state. 

From the time of the reign of the Emperor 
Hadrian, perhaps even from the time of Nero, a 
Christian was regarded as an outlaw. Christians had 

[6] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

suffered death in the time of Nero, and in that of 
Domitian, too. But the earliest clear enactment 
against the Christians is found in the law of Trajan 
(98-117). He had sent Pliny to one of the provinces 
of the empire to restore order there, and one of the 
great difficulties met by Pliny was how to deal with 
the Christians, whose "superstition" was fast menac- 
ing the empire, one result being that, so many were 
they, it was hard to sell the meat that had been sacri- 
ficed to the gods. For a long time Christians had been 
considered by the Romans the same as Jews, and were 
allowed the same privileges. When the difference be- 
came evident it meant persecution, for whereas the 
Jews were freed of the obligation of sacrificing to the 
Roman gods, since they had a national God of their 
own, the Christians had no legal right to worship their 
God, and hence when they refused to worship the 
Roman gods they were regarded as atheists. But up 
to Trajan's time there had been no special law of 
proscription against them. Trajan answered Pliny 
that no steps should be taken by the magistrates to 
find out who were Christians, but if they were de- 
nounced, and admitted that they were Christians, they 
were to be punished with death. The Christians 
thereby became outlaws. 

So during the reign of Hadrian (1 17-138) we find 
the first Christian matron of whom we have record 
among the martyrs. This was St. Sabina, who suf- 
fered death in the year 126. No doubt there had been 
other noble defenders of the faith before her. Thus 

[7] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

we find St. Symphorosa, who, though not a martyr, 
was a true Christian heroine. She was a very wealthy 
woman, and lived on a great estate. Her husband 
and her brother had been tribunes, or colonels, in the 
Roman army, and both had been put to death for the 
faith. Symphorosa had them buried on her own farm, 
and gave herself to a life of sanctity. But Sabina was 
called to lay down her own life. She had been married 
to a man named Valentine, and was now a widow. 
She lived at Rome, and was converted to the faith by 
the example of her slave Serapia. Serapia met her 
death by being beaten with clubs, and in that same 
year, 126, Sabina also suffered martyrdom, and so was 
enrolled among the saints of the Church. 

Towards the end of this same reign there is related 
to us the story of a martyrdom which is very similar 
to the history of the Machabees. It is the story of 
another Symphorosa and her seven sons. She was 
the widow of the tribune, Getulius, who had been mar- 
tyred some time before. The story goes that when 
the Emperor Hadrian had completed his magnificent 
palace at Tibur and began to dedicate it by offering 
sacrifice to the gods, these same gods complained 
and said : 

"The widow Symphorosa and her sons torment us 
daily by invoking their god. If she and her sons offer 
sacrifice, we promise to give you all that you ask for." 

The Emperor immediately had the widow and her 
sons arrested, and sought to induce them to offer 
sacrifice to the gods. But they refused. Symphorosa 

[8] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

had been brought to the Temple of Hercules and com- 
manded to offer sacrifice. When she refused she was 
made to suffer many tortures, among others being 
hung up by the hair of the head, and at last was thrown 
into the river Anio with a heavy rock fastened to her 
neck. Her brother Eugenius buried her in the out- 
skirts of the city. The following day the Emperor 
summoned her seven sons, and when they refused to 
offer sacrifice he ordered them to be tied to seven 
stakes which had been erected around the temple for 
that purpose. Every one of them suffered a different 
kind of martyrdom, and then the bodies of them all 
were thrown into a ditch. 

During the reign of the Emperor Antoninus, a few 
years later (138-161), we find a similar story regard- 
ing St. Felicitas and her seven sons. She was a noble 
Christian widow, who was given over to a life of 
prayer and fasting and charity. By her great zeal for 
Christ she had converted many idolaters, so that the 
pagan priests hated her. They had her arrested and 
tried to make her and her sons offer sacrifice to the 
gods. But she refused. 

"Unhappy woman," said the Prefect to her, "is it 
possible you should think death so desirable as not 
to permit even your children to live, but force me to 
destroy them by the most cruel torments ?" 

"My children," she answered, "will live eternally 
with Christ if they are faithful to Him; but must ex- 
pect eternal death if they sacrifice to idols. ,, 

Again the Prefect exhorted her: "Take pity of 
[9] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

your children, Felicitas; they are in the bloom of 
youth, and may aspire to the greatest honors and pre- 
ferments." 

"Your pity is really impiety," she answered, "and 
the compassion to which you exhort me would make 
me the most cruel of mothers." 

All the sons refused to offer sacrifice, and they 
were martyred in different ways. St. Gregory the 
Great delivered a discourse on her festival in which 
he said that she, "having seven children, was as much 
afraid of leaving them behind her on earth, as other 
mothers are of surviving theirs. She was more than 
a martyr; for seeing her seven children martyred be- 
fore her eyes, she was in some sort a martyr in each 
of them." In these great women who urged their sons 
to die rather than be false to God we see mother-love 
in its most glorious light. 

Under the proscription of Trajan the Church ex- 
isted from the year 112 to the reign of Septimius 
Severus ( 193-21 1), during which time the Christians 
were ever in danger of being denounced for their re- 
ligion and made to suffer as enemies of the state. 
With Septimius there was the aim to check the. growth 
of the Church by stopping conversions, and so he 
added to the former law of Trajan a clause forbidding 
any one to become a convert to the Christians. 

In the persecution of the early Church one can dis- 
tinguish three different stages. At first the Christians 
were let alone. They were to be ignored as harm- 
less fanatics, and were not to be molested unless they 

[10] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

were denounced as practising an illegal religion. In 
the second stage there is an advance. It was thought 
that they were growing too fast, that by their increas- 
ing numbers they were threatening to become a men- 
ace to the state. And so the authorities tried to make 
the new sect die out by forbidding any new converts. 
But at last it was realized that the Christians were be- 
come too strong, that too many conversions were being 
made, and this led to the attempt to settle the ques- 
tion by annihilating all Christians. 

One sees a similar policy in the Elizabethan persecu- 
tions. The persecution of the Catholics became active 
as soon as it was realized that it was vain to expect 
that the Church would die out from lack of the per- 
petuation of the priesthood, seeing that the missionary 
priests were keeping the faith alive. 

So this new law of Septimius Severus forbidding 
a pagan to become a Christian produced many martyrs, 
among them the noble woman Perpetua and her slave 
Felicitas, both of whom are commemorated in the 
Church on the same day. Their story has always been 
a popular one in the Church from that day to this. 
It is as follows: 

There were certain young catechumens, Revocatus, 
Saturninus, and Secundulus, waiting their time to be 
fully admitted into the faith. They were arrested, 
and with them Felicitas, who was a fellow-slave with 
Revocatus. Among the catechumens, too, was Vivia 
Perpetua, a woman of fine family, well educated, and 
married. Her father and mother were living, also 

In] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

two brothers, one of whom was a catechumen like her- 
self. She was about twenty-two years of age, and had 
an infant son still at her breast. It is she herself that 
tells the story of her sufferings quite up to the end. 

When she was arrested, her father, through the great 
love he had for her, sought to reclaim her to paganism. 
But as she would not be persuaded by him, he threw 
his arms about her, as if, said she, he would tear her 
eyes out. But she adds: "He only distressed me, 
and went away overcome by the devil's arguments. 
Then in a few days after I had been without my father, 
I gave thanks to the Lord; and his absence was a 
source of consolation to me." She and the other cate- 
chumens were then baptized. After a few days they 
were taken to the dungeon, and Perpetua was very 
much afraid, because she had never before felt such 
darkness. "O terrible day!" she writes. "O the fierce 
heat of the shock of the soldiery because of the 
crowds! I was unusually distressed by my anxiety 
for my infant. There were present Tertius and 
Pomponius, the blessed deacons who ministered unto 
us, and had arranged by means of a gratuity that we 
might be refreshed by being sent out for a few hours 
into a pleasant part of the prison. Then going out 
of the dungeon, all attended to their own wants. I 
suckled my child, which was now enfeebled with 
hunger. In my anxiety for it, I addressed my mother 
and comforted my brother, and commended to their 
care my son. I was languishing because I had seen 
them languishing on my account. Such solicitude I 

[12] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

suffered for many days. I obtained leave for my in- 
fant to remain in the dungeon with me ; and forthwith 
I grew strong, and was relieved from distress and 
anxiety about my infant; and the dungeon became to 
me as it were a palace, so that I preferred being there 
to being elsewhere." 

Her brother urged her to ask for a vision in order 
that she might know whether she was to die or escape. 
And Perpetua tells us simply: "And I, who knew 
that I was privileged to converse with the Lord, whose 
kindness I had found to be so great, boldly promised 
him and said, 'To-morrow I will tell you.' " 

She asked for the vision, and God heard her prayer. 
She saw a golden ladder of marvelous height, reach- 
ing up even to heaven, and very narrow so that per- 
sons could ascend it only one by one. On the sides 
of the ladder was fixed every kind of weapon, swords, 
lances, hooks, daggers. Under the ladder was a 
dragon of wonderful size, who lay in wait for those 
who ascended, and frightened them from the ascent. 
Secundulus, who had delivered himself over to the 
authorities after the others, was the first to ascend. 
When he got to the top of the ladder, he turned and 
said: 

"Perpetua, I am waiting for you; but be careful 
that the dragon do not bite you." 

And Perpetua answered: "In the name of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, he shall not hurt me." 

She trod upon the dragon's head, and ascended the 
ladder. As she went up, she saw an immense garden, 

[13] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and in the midst of it a white-haired man, sitting in 
the dress of a shepherd, of large stature, milking sheep, 
and standing around were many thousand white-robed 
ones. He raised his head and said to Perpetua, "Thou 
art welcome, daughter." He called her, and from the 
cheese as he was milking gave her as it were a little 
cake, and Perpetua received it with folded hands. 
She ate it, and all who stood around said, "Amen." 
At the sound of the voices she awoke from her vision. 
She told the vision to her brother, and they both 
understood that it was to be martyrdom, and she says, 
"We ceased henceforth to have any hope in this 
world." 

A few days afterwards the report went out that 
the prisoners were to have their trial. Perpetua' s 
father came to her from the city, worn out with 
anxiety. 

"Have pity, my daughter," he pleaded, "on my gray 
hairs. Have pity on your father, if I am worthy to 
be called your father by you. If with these hands I 
have brought you up to this flower of your age, if 
I have preferred you to all your brothers, do not 
deliver me up to the scorn of men. Have regard to 
your brothers, have regard to your mother and your 
aunt, and have regard to your son, who will not be 
able to live after you. Lay aside your courage, and 
do not bring us all to destruction ; for none of us will 
speak in freedom if you should suffer anything." 

Greatly her father loved her. He kissed her hands, 
and threw himself at her feet, and called her, not 

[14] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

Daughter, but Lady. Perpetua grieved over his gray 
hairs, sorrowful that he alone of all the family would 
not rejoice at her coming martyrdom. She comforted 
him, saying, "On that scaffold whatever God wills 
shall happen. For know that we are not placed in 
our own power, but in that of God." The father de- 
parted in sorrow. 

One day, while the prisoners were at dinner, they 
were suddenly taken away to the town-hall to be heard. 
An immense crowd had congregated. The accused 
ones mounted the platform. All the others were ex- 
amined, and confessed that they were Christians. 
"Then they came to me," says Perpetua, "and my 
father immediately appeared with my boy, and with- 
drew me from the step, and said in a supplicating 
tone, 'Have pity on your babe!' And Hilarianus, the 
Procurator, said, 'Spare the gray hairs of your father, 
spare the infancy of your boy, offer sacrifice for the 
well-being of the Emperors/ And I replied, T will 
not do so.' Hilarianus said, 'Are you a Christian?' 
and I replied, T am a Christian.' And as my father 
stood there to cast me down from the faith, he was 
ordered by Hilarianus to be thrown down, and was 
beaten with rods. And my father's misfortune 
grieved me as if I myself had been beaten, I so 
grieved for his wretched old age. The Procurator 
then delivered judgment on all of us, and condemned 
us to the wild beasts, and we went down cheerfully to 
the dungeon. Then, because my child had been used 
to receive suck from me and to stay with me in prison, 

[15] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

I sent Pomponius the deacon to my father to ask for 
the infant, but my father would not give it to him. 
And even as God willed it, the child no longer desired 
the breast lest I should be tormented by care for my 
babe and by the pains of my breasts at once." 

One day she had a vision of her little brother, 
Dinocrates, who at the age of seven had died of can- 
cer of the face. She saw him in his sufferings, and 
prayed God for him. Again she had a vision, and by 
it she knew that his soul was happy. 

As the day of the exhibition and the games drew 
near, her father came to her again. He was worn 
out with suffering. He began to tear out his beard, 
and to throw himself on the ground, and to cast him- 
self down on his face, and to reproach his years, and 
to utter such words as might move all creation, and 
Perpetua grieved for his unhappy old age. She had 
a vision in which it was shown to her what she would 
endure in the amphitheatre. She perceived that she 
was to fight not with beasts, but against the devil. 
"Still," she adds, "I knew that victory was awaiting 
me." Many visions they had to comfort them and 
strengthen them in the prison. 

Meanwhile the slave Felicitas was in great grief. 
She was eight months with child, and as the day of 
martyrdom was nearing, she feared she would not be 
suffered to die, since pregnant women were not al- 
lowed to be publicly punished. The others, too, 
grieved that she was to be left behind. Hence they 
all prayed for her, and immediately after the prayer 

[16] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

she gave birth to her little girl, who was adopted by 
a fellow-Christian. 

In her pains one of the servants said to her, "You 
who are in such suffering now, what will you do when 
you are thrown to the beasts, which you despised when 
you refused to sacrifice?" And she replied: "Now 
it is I that suffer what I suffer ; but then there will be 
another in me, who will suffer for me, because I also 
am about to suffer for Him." 

On the day before the exhibition, as they enjoyed 
their last meal together, they were happy, talking of 
the joy of the coming martyrdom, and even laughing 
at the curiosity of the people that came to watch 
them. Many, seeing such a strange thing as men and 
women laughing at the approach of death, were con- 
verted to the faith. 

The day at last arrived. The martyrs were led into 
the amphitheatre, joyous and of brilliant countenance. 
Perpetua came with a placid look, and "with step and 
gait as a matron of Christ, beloved of God, casting 
down the lustre of her eyes from the gaze of all" ; and 
with her Felicitas, "rejoicing that she had safely 
brought forth so that she might fight with the wild 
beasts." The persecutors tried to make them put on 
pagan priestly garments, but they refused. 

Perpetua sang psalms, while the men, Revocatus, 
Saturninus, and Secundulus, uttered threatenings 
against the gazing people about this martyrdom. 
'Thou judgest us," they said, as they passed the Pro- 
curator, "but God will judge Thee." 

[17] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

At this, the people, exasperated, demanded that they 
should be scourged as they passed along. The men 
were set on by a wild leopard, a bear, and a boar; 
the women by a wild cow, provided especially for that 
occasion, and contrary to the custom. They were 
stripped, and clothed with nets, and brought into the 
arena, while the populace shuddered at the sight of 
the delicate women, one of them but three days since 
a mother. They were then unbound. 

Perpetua was first led in. She was tossed by the 
cow, and fell on her loins, and when she saw her tunic 
torn from her side she drew it over her as a veil, 
"rather mindful of her modesty than her suffering." 
Again she was called for, and bound up her disheveled 
hair. So she rose up; and when she saw Felicitas 
crushed, she approached and gave her her hand, and 
lifted her up. And both of them stood together; and 
the brutality of the populace being appeased, they 
were recalled to the Sanavivarian gate. 

Perpetua seemed to have been in an ecstasy, for she 
did not believe what she had been through until she 
saw the injuries to her dress and body. Then she 
said to one of the catechumens and to her brother, 
"Stand fast in the faith, and love one another, all of 
you, and be not offended at my sufferings.' ' 

All the martyrs then gave one another the kiss of 
peace. The men and Felicitas were pierced with a 
sword. But, the story says, "Perpetua, that she might 
taste some pain, being pierced between the ribs, cried 
out loudly, and she herself placed the wavering right 

[18] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

hand of the youthful gladiator to her throat." And 
so she died, the young mother, a brave and blessed 
martyr for the faith of Christ. 

But still the persecutions did not destroy the 
Church. In spite of prohibitions, in spite of persecu- 
tions, men and women embraced the Cross. For a 
while the Church enjoyed peace, and then with the 
Emperor Decius (250-253) a new era of persecution 
began. He wished to restore the empire to the prestige 
it was losing, and he felt that the great obstacle was 
Christianity. So he issued an edict, prescribing that 
on a certain day all Christians of the empire should 
offer sacrifice to the gods. There was no more peace 
for the Christians. Now they were to be sought out 
by the magistrates, and to be persecuted if they would 
not apostatize. Christianity was to be annihilated. 
Sad to relate, many Christians fell away, and offered 
sacrifice, denying their faith for fear of persecution; 
others apostatized under torture, but there was a multi- 
tude ready to endure anything rather than offend their 
conscience. This persecution lasted eighteen months, 
and did incalculable harm. A few years' respite, and 
persecution broke out afresh. The Church was never 
safe, but always the Christian was ready to lay down 
his life. 

Under the reign of Aurelian (270-275) we have 
another wife and mother as martyr. This was St. 
Martha, who was put to death in 270. She and her 
husband, St. Maris, belonged to the Persian nobility, 
and had come to live at Rome. They were zealous 

[19] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Christians and sympathized with the persecuted faith- 
ful, and buried the bodies of the martyrs. This en- 
raged the Emperor, and they were seized and con- 
demned to tortures. When they did not flinch under 
the persecution, Maris and his sons, Audi fax and 
Abachum, were beheaded and their bodies burnt. 
Martha was cast into a well. A Roman lady named 
Felicitas had the remains of them all buried in one 
of the Catacombs. The feast of all these martyrs is 
observed on the same day. What a glorious family! 
What a happy mother to know that her husband and 
children had gone before her into eternal happiness! 

The last persecution against the Church was begun 
in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian (284—305). 
Christian assemblies were forbidden, churches and 
sacred books were ordered to be destroyed, and all 
Christians were commanded to abjure their religion 
at once. The penalties were death and degradation 
for the higher classes, reduction to slavery for free- 
men of the humbler sort, and for slaves incapacity 
to receive the gift of freedom. Later on a new edict 
ordered the imprisonment of ecclesiastics of all grades. 
A third edict imposed the death penalty for refusal to 
abjure, and granted freedom to those who would sacri- 
fice, while a fourth enactment commanded everybody, 
without exception, to offer sacrifice. This was the 
last effort to destroy Christianity. It failed, but it 
gave the Church countless martyrs. Among them 
were many wives and mothers. 

Of these was St. Julitta. She was very rich. One 
[20] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

of her neighbors, abetted by the new law, seized her 
property and denounced her as being a Christian. She 
was arrested and commanded to offer incense to the 
gods. But she refused. 

"May my estates perish/' she said, "or be disposed 
of to strangers; may I also lose my life; and may this 
body be cut in pieces, rather than that by the least 
impious word I should offend God that made me. If 
you take from me a little portion of the earth, I shall 
gain heaven for it." 

They threw her on the fire, but she died immediately 
and the flames did not harm her body. 

During these same days of persecution we find a 
striking story in that of Hilaria, the mother of St. 
Affra. Affra had led the life of a prostitute, but had 
been converted, as was Magdalen. She was put to 
death for the faith, and during the night her mother 
came and carried away the body to bury it. She also 
was seized and put to death. A happy mother to 
know that her daughter, who had gone the road of 
wickedness, had been reclaimed to God! Not all the 
suffering in the world could take away her joy. 

So also St. Domnina and St. Theonilla. Domnina 
had been scourged to death, even though she had a 
little child. But her love for the child would not let 
her seek to save her life through the denial of her 
God. So she died bravely. On that same day died 
her friend, Theonilla. She was a widow, and was ac- 
cused of being a Christian, in which accusation she 
gloried. 

[21] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

"Shave her head," ordered the brutal Proconsul, 
"that she may undergo greater confusion. Gird her 
about with thorns ; extend her body, and tie it to four 
stakes; scourge her with thongs not only upon the 
back, but over all her body; lay live coals upon her 
belly, and so let her die!" 

And so she endured all these torments and went 
to God. 

There is also St. Lucy, a widow, of whose death 
no details have been handed down. 

Another mother-martyr was St. Crispina. She was 
of high birth, was very rich, and the mother of sev- 
eral children. She was a refined, delicate lady, but 
a woman of great heroism. Her children wept pite- 
ously at the thought of her being taken from them, 
but their tears did not move her. She even gave 
thanks to God for choosing her for one of his blessed 
martyrs. She was brought before the Proconsul in 
Africa, where she lived, and ordered to sacrifice to 
the gods. She declared that she honored only one 
God. Her head was shaved at the command of the 
judge, and then she was exposed to the public to be 
mocked. But nothing moved her from her loyalty 
to Christ. And so she was beheaded. 

In those days it was no strange thing for whole 
families to die together, as in the case of St. Martha 
and her family. United on earth, their desire was to 
be united in heaven. 

In one of the persecutions at this time we find an- 
other husband and wife dying for the faith. These 

[22] 



MOTHERS AND MARTYRS 

were St. Chrysanthus and St. Daria. According to 
the legend, Chrysanthus was the son of a nobleman, 
Polemius of Alexandria. He had come to Rome with 
his father and had been converted to Christianity. 
Every inducement was offered to make him apostatize. 
Daria was a beautiful and intelligent vestal virgin who 
sought to pervert him. But instead of being perverted 
by him, he succeeded in winning her over to the faith. 
Then they married, but made a vow of virginity. 
Many Romans and Roman ladies were converted by 
them, among these being the tribune Claudius, his 
wife, Hilaria, and their two sons, Maurus and Jason. 
All of this family except the mother suffered the death 
of martyrs. Chrysanthus and Daria were at last 
condemned, and were thrown into a sand-pit and there 
stoned to death. 

Finally there was the woman whose name was con- 
sidered worthy of special remembrance in the Canon 
of the Mass, St. Anastasia, the noble Roman matron 
who gave all she had to the Christians in prison, and 
was rewarded for her charity with the crown of 
martyrdom. 

So ended the persecutions. Of the two hundred and 
forty-nine years from the persecution under Nero 
(64) to the year 313, when Constantine established 
lasting peace, the Christians suffered persecution for 
about one hundred and twenty-nine years, and en- 
joyed a certain degree of peace for one hundred and 
twenty years. Yet even in the times of peace they 
were always in danger. St. Justin tells us of one wife 

[23] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

who was denounced by her husband, and put to death, 
because she had given up the evil life she used to lead 
in his society. St. Justin himself was converted largely 
by the example of the fortitude of those who suffered 
for the faith. No one was spared. Dionysius states 
that "men and women, young and old, maidens and 
mothers, soldiers and civilians, of every age and race, 
some by scourging and fire, others by the sword, have 
conquered in the struggle and won their crowns." 

These were our ancestors in the faith. What 
heroines were these wives and mothers to suffer such 
martyrdom! What an example to the mothers of 
to-day! You wives and mothers are not called upon 
to lay down your life for your religion. But if these 
women may not serve you as examples of how to die 
for your faith, surely they are examples of how to 
live for it. They have shown that the true glory of 
motherhood is first of all to build up in the hearts of 
children the Kingdom of God. Blessed, surely, is the 
child who has a mother that first of all seeks the King- 
dom of God and His justice! 



[24] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 
(90-592) 

DURING the ages of faith there was nothing re- 
markable in the fact that women of royal 
birth lived a life that was patterned after the cloister. 
In times when kings and queens patronized the re- 
ligious houses, when the monastery was at the gate 
of the palace, it was not strange that the children who 
were educated by the religious received a training they 
never forgot. No wonder that many of them, seeing 
the peace, the charm of a life hidden with Christ in 
God, left the court and followed My Lady Poverty 
as their queen. And many there were who, while 
their duty kept them in the royal halls, made the life 
of regal splendor compatible with the simplicity of 
the Gospel. 

We are apt to think that sanctity and nobility of 
birth do not go together. But sanctity is possible 
everywhere. The millionaire can be poor in spirit. 
How evident that is as we read the lives of many noble 
women! They had all that this world can give of 
wealth and glory, yet amid it all they preserved sim- 
plicity of soul. They did not presume on their worldly 
position, for they knew that the greatest empress might 
be the lowest in the Kingdom of God — yea, not even 

[25] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

fit to enter that kingdom. There have been great 
queens who have become great saints. But besides 
these there have been other great women of noble fam- 
ily who, in spite of their dwelling in the houses of 
kings, living the busy life of the court, found time to 
do much for God. Some of them have been canon- 
ized; others have not. But all are worthy to be re- 
membered inasmuch as they are shining examples of 
virtue. 

We hear continually the plea to us to advance in 
virtue, to aspire even to holiness, yet so often our 
answer is, How expect us to be saints when we have so 
much to do, so little time for church and prayer, so 
little opportunity to do charity? The answer to that 
argument — which is no argument at all — is the life of 
every one of these noble women who might more 
justly have advanced that reason for a cold, indifferent 
life in the service of God. They were wives and 
mothers, with all that that means of labor and sacri- 
fice, yet their earthly duties never stood in the way of 
their duty to God. 

So has it been through all the ages of the Church. 
The Christian motherhood of the first century is the 
same as that of the twentieth. The same Gospel 
governs all our lives. The same Mother of God is the 
never-changing example of motherhood. The good 
St. Ann is still a pattern. So, too, St. Elizabeth, "just 
before God, walking in all the commandments and 
justifications of the Lord without blame" (St. Luke 
i, 6). With true motherhood, God is always first. 

[26] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

We see that in the life of a wife and mother of 
the very first years of the Church, Flavia Domitilla. 
She was of the highest station; she belonged even to 
the imperial family of Rome. Her grandfather was 
the Emperor Vespasian, and her mother's two brothers, 
Titus and Domitian, also wore the purple. She was 
married to a nephew of Vespasian, Titus Flavius 
Clemens, and they had two sons who were chosen by 
Domitian to be his successors. It was a great honor 
for the young mother to be able to look forward to 
the day when her children would be the Emperors of 
Rome, even though, as events turned out, they never 
attained to that honor. 

But she had given them a greater honor even than 
the royal purple, inasmuch as she had made them 
Christians, and that, too, at a time when the new 
religion was a despised thing in cultured Rome. Both 
she and her husband had become Christians. He had 
been a consul under the Emperor, but he resigned 
the honor, perhaps because it interfered with the 
practice of his faith. After his resignation he was 
put to death on the most trivial charges, and may al- 
most be considered a martyr for the faith. 

Flavia was then banished from the empire because 
of her religion, and retired to the island of Pandataria. 
Her property at Rome was used by the Christians as 
a place of burial, and was known as the Cemetery of 
Domitilla. We know very little of the life of this 
woman, save these few facts. And yet they are 
enough to enable us to picture her as a great wife 

[27] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and mother, a woman who gave up all rather than 
deny her God, preferring banishment to a life of ease 
and luxury, even in the imperial household, when that 
life meant a denial of her faith. What was even the 
throne itself compared with the dignity of Christian 
matron ? 

A striking example to husbands and wives is the 
life of St. Melania and her husband, Pinianus. She 
was the second famous woman of that name, her 
grandmother Melania, though not a canonized saint, 
being worthy of mention in the history of the early 
Church. Melania the elder, as she is known, was very 
rich and belonged to a noble Spanish family. She had 
been left a widow at the age of twenty-three, with one 
son, Publicola. After she had placed him in the care 
of good tutors, she went to Palestine, where she built 
a monastery, and there lived a life of penance, wear- 
ing a coarse habit and sleeping on the floor. She led 
this kind of life for twenty-seven years. Meanwhile 
her son had married a woman named Albina, of which 
union a son and daughter were born. The daughter 
was the younger Melania, known now as St. Melania, 
born in Rome about 383. 

We know very little of her childhood; in fact, she 
was scarcely more than a child when, at the age of 
thirteen, she was married to one of her relatives, 
Pinianus, who also belonged to a noble family. She 
lived with him as his wife for seven years and was 
the mother of two children. But the children died 
young, and then Melania got her husband's consent 

[28] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

to live a life of chastity. He, too, was a man of great 
sanctity, for we find him taking part in all the efforts 
of his wife towards sanctity. When the elder Melania 
heard of this, she returned from Palestine after an 
absence of thirty-seven years, and was welcomed by 
all the nobility of Rome. She advised her grand- 
daughter and husband to give their goods to the poor 
and retire to a life of solitude. They took the advice 
of one who herself had led such a holy life for so 
many years. Gradually they gave away their wealth, 
and at the time that the Visigoths invaded the coun- 
try they left Rome and for two years lived at Messina 
in Sicily, where, in company with some of their former 
slaves, they led a monastic life. 

In the year 410 the elder Melania returned to her 
monastery in Palestine and died there that same year 
at the age of sixty-eight. The young husband and 
wife, together with Melania' s mother, Albina, and 
many of their relatives who had been converted by 
them, went to Africa, where they lived seven years, 
and where Melania came to know St. Augustine. 
Here she gave herself to a life of prayer, and founded 
a nunnery of which she became superior, and also a 
monastery which was presided over by her husband. 
Later on, in 417, she and her husband and her mother 
went to Palestine and lived in a hospice, where they 
became friends of St. Jerome. They had freed some 
eight thousand of their slaves, had given away or sold 
their property in Spain, and what money they now 
had was used in furthering works of religion. Me- 

[29] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

lania traveled in Egypt, visiting the various monastic 
houses, and then retired to Jerusalem, where she lived 
twelve years in a hermitage near the Mount of Olives. 
She built a new series of monasteries, which she sup- 
ported. 

This was the way she used her wealth. In her own 
life there was absolute poverty. She lived on bread 
and water. One would never guess that she and 
Pinianus were of noble families, so humbly did they 
live. Their occupation was to copy good books, and 
Pinianus could also be seen tilling his little garden — he 
that at one time had thousands of slaves under him. 
After his death she built a cloister for men and a 
fine church, and then went to Constantinople, where 
she succeeded in converting her pagan uncle, am- 
bassador at the court of Theodosius II. She also 
helped in the conflict of the Church against the heresy 
of Nestor ius. She died in 439, at the age of fifty- 
seven. 

St. Melania was an active woman, a builder, a 
founder of convents, a traveler; yet always was she 
animated with the love of God. She might have lived 
in luxury and worldly happiness, but in her contempt 
of these things she showed that the greatest happi- 
ness in life comes from the despising of all that keeps 
the soul from God. She, her mother, and her grand- 
mother were a noble line of Christian women. 

One finds at this same time another group of noble 
women, also grandmother, mother, and daughter, in 
the famous Proba family. Anicia Faltonia Proba be- 

[30] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

longed to one of the noblest families in Rome, a fam- 
ily unbounded in its wealth and influence, and in which 
the consulate seemed hereditary. The family had been 
Christian from the time of Constantine, and perhaps 
longer, even from the time of the persecutions. She 
was married to Sextus Petronius Probus, who was 
Prefect of Italy from 368 to 375. His riches were so 
abundant that some Persian noblemen who had come 
to Milan to see St. Ambrose continued on to Rome 
to witness the grandeur of Probus. Proba was a 
learned woman, a poet of no mean ability, besides be- 
longing to the highest aristocracy. But religion was 
more to her than wealth and position. She succeeded 
in converting her husband to Christianity. 

In the life of St. Melania we have seen that the 
Visigoths plundered Rome in 410. Proba and her 
house suffered. Her home had always been a centre 
of Christianity. Many of the holy virgins had taken 
refuge there, but all fell into the hands of the bar- 
barians. At last they all obtained their liberty, and 
Faltonia, her daughter-in-law Juliana, and her grand- 
daughter Demetrias, with a number of widows and 
virgins, went to Africa, then the centre of so much 
fervent faith. It was the time of the great St. 
Augustine, and Proba, seeking to sanctify her soul, 
wrote to him, asking for instructions as to how she 
should pray. We have his answer to her, in which 
he wrote that she must despise the world and its 
pleasures, and strive for the true happiness of divine 
grace and charity, which is to be the object of all our 

[31] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

prayers; to pray without ceasing; to have regular 
hours for devotions; and to raise her heart to God 
in all her actions. It is a practical, common-sense 
letter, such as we would expect to find from the practi- 
cal St. Augustine to a practical woman like Proba. 

The exiles lived some time at Carthage and later 
on they returned to Rome. The granddaughter, De- 
metrias, gave all her great wealth to the Church and 
entered a life of religion. We know little, after all, 
about Proba except the poetry she wrote on sacred 
subjects, but we may well believe that she followed 
the advice of St. Augustine and devoted herself to a 
life of prayer. And her influence was felt in the 
other members of her family. She was a great wife 
and mother. 

Those were days in which we find more than one 
saint in a family. Particularly evident is this in the 
life of St. Macrina, who may be called the founder 
of a long line of saints. She was born at Neocsesarea 
in Pontus in the middle of the third century. St. 
Gregory Thaumaturgus was the first bishop of her 
native town, and in her childhood she knew him, and 
had received from him, no doubt, her first inclination 
to a holy life through his example. He was a great 
man and had converted almost all of Neocaesarea to 
Christianity. 

Macrina had to suffer for the faith. At the time 
of the persecution under Diocletian she had to flee, to- 
gether with her husband, from her native town and 
endure many privations for professing Christianity. 

[32] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

It was the last storm that broke over the Church, and 
she may be regarded as a confessor for the faith. She 
was the mother of St. Basil the elder. 

Basil was a professor of rhetoric, and wealthy. He 
married Emmelia, afterwards St. Emmelia, who was 
also of fine family. On both sides there were high 
functionaries, both civil and military. Both had 
reason to be loyal to the faith. Emmelia's father was 
a martyr, and Basil's parents had lived seven years 
in the woods and mountains during the persecution; 
and the faith they had received in so full a measure 
they handed down to their children. The family has 
well been called a "nursery of bishops and saints." 
They had ten children, of whom three were bishops, 
and of whom four became saints — St. Basil, St. 
Gregory of Nyssa, St. Peter, and St. Macrina. The 
younger St. Macrina was the eldest, and she exerted 
a wonderful influence on the other members of the 
family. She was an intellectual woman, and besides 
had been well trained by her mother and her grand- 
mother. When she was twelve years of age a mar- 
riage had been arranged by her father with a young 
lawyer of fine family. But he died suddenly, and she 
resolved to devote herself to a life of virginity. 

On the death of the father, Basil took Macrina and 
his mother to the family estate in Pontus, where they 
led a life of retirement, penance, and prayer, conse- 
crating themselves to God. Macrina induced her 
mother to help her in founding two monasteries on 
the estate, one for men and one for women. Here 

[33 1 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

were gathered to them other saints, and St. Emmelia 
presided over the community till her death, when 
Macrina took her place. What a blessed mother was 
Emmelia to raise up four children to be canonized 
saints! A mother of ten children — how much that 
means of hard work ; how easily such a mother could 
excuse herself for a life of coldness in the service 
of God; yet Emmelia, with all her cares, found time 
to develop in the hearts of her children the love, above 
all else, for the things of the soul. She surely deserves 
to be remembered as a great wife and mother. 

Another remarkable woman of the early ages was 
St. Fabiola. She belonged to the patrician Roman 
family of the Fabia. She had made an unfortunate 
marriage, for her husband led such a wicked life that 
she became disgusted with him and got a divorce. 
So little inclination did she have then towards 
sanctity, that we soon find her marrying another man 
even while her first husband was living. It was, of 
course, a serious sin on her part; but soon grace 
touched her heart. 

On the day before Easter, following the death of 
the second husband, she dressed herself in penitential 
garments and appeared before the gates of the Later an 
basilica, and there did public penance for her offence. 
Considering the high social position of Fabiola, this 
act of penance made a great impression on the Chris- 
tians of Rome. The Pope received her back into the 
Church. To show the sincerity of her repentance, she 
renounced the world and devoted her immense wealth 

[34] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

to the needs of the sick and the poor. She built a 
fine hospital in Rome and tended the patients herself, 
even when their diseases were most repulsive. Besides 
that, she gave a great deal to the churches and re- 
ligious houses all over Italy. In 395 she went to 
Bethlehem, and lived there in the hospice directed by 
Paula, the friend of St. Jerome. She studied the 
Scriptures under him and interested herself in works 
of piety and charity. 

Fabiola returned to Rome some time afterwards and 
kept up a correspondence with him. At Rome she 
joined with the former senator, Pammachius, in erect- 
ing at Porto a large hospital for the pilgrims who 
used to come to the Eternal City even in those days. 
In a word, she was a woman whose whole life was 
filled with charity, and when she died (400) there was 
universal sorrow, and her great funeral showed the 
love and veneration in which she was held by the 
people of the city where once she had given scandal. 

St. Jerome, while at Rome, was universally loved 
and esteemed on account of his piety and learning. 
Many among the chief nobility, clergy, and monks 
came to him for instruction. Besides these, there 
were many devout women who looked to him for ad- 
vice in regard to the duties of their state in life. 
Among them we find such women as St. Marcella, her 
sister Asella, and their mother Albina, also Melania 
the elder, Marcellina, Felicitas, Lea, Fabiola, Laeta, 
Paula, her daughters, and many others. 

St. Marcella was styled by St. Jerome as "the glory 
[35] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of the Roman ladies." Her husband had died seven 
months after their marriage. Cerealis, the ex-consul, 
had sought her hand then, but she refused him and 
then retired to a country-house near Rome. She had 
heard of the life that St. Anthony was then living in 
the desert, and she decided to embrace the monastic 
life. She was a charitable woman, and directed a 
great many of the Roman ladies in the higher life, 
being looked up to by them on account of her own holy 
life. So also St. Lea, also a wealthy Roman lady, who 
gave up her social position to lead a life of mortifica- 
tion, often spending whole nights in prayer. 

But the most illustrious of these women was St. 
Paula. She was born in 347, and was the leader of 
all the Roman ladies of her time, because of her riches, 
her noble blood, and her fine intellect. At the age 
of thirty-two she lost her husband. Her heart was 
broken, but her friend St. Marcella encouraged her 
to devote the rest of her life to God. At once she be- 
gan to lead a life of penance, sleeping on the ground, 
mortifying herself in other ways, and giving all her 
property to the poor. When St. Jerome came to Rome 
she induced him to accept a lodging in her house, so 
that she and her family might consult him as their 
spiritual director. At the request of Marcella, St. 
Jerome used to give readings in the Scriptures to a 
group of patrician women. Paula studied hard. St. 
Jerome tells us that Marcella and Paula and her two 
daughters, Blesilla and Eustochium, spoke, wrote and 
recited the Psalter in Hebrew as perfectly as in Greek 

[36] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

and Latin. They all sought Christian perfection. 
After three years of residence in Rome, St. Jerome 
returned to the East. 

But, learned as she was, Paula did not neglect her 
home. She married her daughter Pauline to the sen- 
ator Pammachius. Her daughter Blesilla had also 
married, but her husband died soon after and she 
wished to enter religion. But she died before she was 
able to accomplish her purpose. Another daughter, 
Rufina, died a couple of years later. And there was 
still another daughter, Eustochium, who later became 
her mother's companion in the East. 

After the death of Blesilla and the departure of St. 
Jerome, Paula also determined to go to the East where 
she longed to lead the monastic life. So with Eus- 
tochium she made a pilgrimage to the holy places, and 
finally came to settle at Bethlehem. 

It was not an easy task. It broke her heart to leave 
her other children. When she was sailing her little 
son came to the shore and pleaded with her not to 
go. But the call of God was even stronger than the 
call of her children. In Bethlehem she helped in the 
founding of two monasteries, one for men and one 
for women, and besides that work, she and her daugh- 
ter helped St. Jerome in his exegetical studies. 

It was a holy life, yet not without its trials. One 
of these trials was her need of money, since she had 
ruined herself by her generosity. In the midst of 
these cares she died in 404, at the age of fifty-six. 
After her death, her granddaughter, Paula the 

[37] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

younger, the daughter of her son Toxotius, came to 
Bethlehem. It was she that had the honor of closing 
the eyes of St. Jerome in 420. 

Just as Appia, the wife of Philemon, must have 
been a consolation to St. Paul, who called her his 
"sister," so were these noble women to the early 
bishops of the Church, helping them in their works 
of charity, building churches, monasteries, and hospi- 
tals, content to be the humble servants of the servants 
of God. 

So do we find it in the case of St. Olympias (360— 
408), a disciple of the great St. John Chrysostom. 
She has been called the glory of the widows in the 
Eastern Church. She came from an illustrious fam- 
ily of Constantinople, her father being a Count of the 
Empire. Her parents died when she was very young, 
leaving her an immense fortune, and she was brought 
up by a great woman, Theodosia, sister of St. Amphil- 
ochius. She married Nebridius, treasurer for the 
Emperor Theodosius. St. Gregory Nazianzen was in- 
vited to the wedding, but he wrote a letter excusing 
his absence, and also wrote a poem in honor of the 
occasion, both being still in existence. 

But the happiness of the marriage did not last long. 
Nebridius died twenty days after the wedding. The 
Emperor tried to induce her to marry a relative of 
his, but she refused, and then the Emperor took her 
great fortune to put in trust until she should be thirty. 
She thanked him, and asked him to give it to the 
Church and to the poor. He was so struck by her life 

[38] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

that he gave her back her estate. But she received it 
only to give it to religion and to charity. She had 
herself consecrated a deaconess, and built with her 
own money the chief church of Constantinople, and 
besides that a convent into which she, with some of 
her relatives and a great number of young ladies, 
withdrew to lead the religious life. When St. John 
Chrysostom became Bishop of Constantinople in 398, 
he acted as her spiritual guide and advised her as to 
the distribution of her property. She always had the 
greatest confidence in him, and put at his disposal 
great sums of money for the use of the Church and 
for charity. Everywhere her charity extended. 
Then, when Chrysostom was driven into exile, she re- 
mained faithful to him, refusing to have anything to 
do with his successor, who had been unlawfully ap- 
pointed. She gave herself up to a life of poverty, 
penance, and prayer. Her dress was mean, her furni- 
ture poor, and yet she was a woman of vast wealth. 
More than that, she suffered from sickness, and was 
even slandered and persecuted. Concerning these suf- 
ferings St. Chrysostom wrote to her: 

"As you are well acquainted with the advantages 
and merit of sufferings, you have reason to rejoice, 
inasmuch as by having lived constantly in tribulation 
you have walked in the road of crowns and laurels. 
All manner of corporal distempers have been your por- 
tion, often more cruel and harder to be endured than 
ten thousand deaths ; nor have you ever been free from 
sickness. You have been perpetually overwhelmed 

[39] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

with slanders, insults, and injuries. Never have you 
been free from some new tribulation; torrents of 
tears have always been familiar to you. Among all 
these, one single affliction is enough to fill your soul 
with spiritual riches/' 

Her virtue was the admiration of the whole Church. 
Great saints corresponded with her. After Chrysos- 
tom's banishment, she, too, was persecuted. Her 
goods were sold at auction, she was dragged before 
tribunals, her clothes torn and herself insulted, and 
the community of nuns which she had governed dis- 
persed. In a word, she endured a living martyrdom. 

St. Olympias died in exile, and after her death was 
venerated as a saint. She was, indeed, a great woman. 
The world held out many attractions to one of her 
wealth and position, but she preferred to put all aside, 
or rather to use it all, in order to extend the glory 
of God. 

In the lives of the women who are noted in the his- 
tory of the Church one finds many a romance. But 
none is stranger than that of the poor little girl who 
became an empress. It is similar to the romance of 
the Empress Helena, who from being the humble 
keeper of an inn became the mother of the great Con- 
stantine and the first woman of the world. The poor 
little girl mentioned above was Eudocia. Her original 
name was Athenais, and she was the daughter of 
Leontius, a pagan, who taught rhetoric at Athens. 
When he was dying he left nearly all his property to 
his two sons. To his daughter Athenais he left only 

[40] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

a hundred pieces of gold, saying that "her luck was 
greater than that of all women." Athenais, however, 
was not content with that kind of inheritance, and so 
she went to Constantinople to contest the will. She 
was very beautiful. In Constantinople she was seen 
by Pulcheria, the elder sister of Theodosius II. 
Theodosius was still under age, and Pulcheria was 
ruling as regent. He was twenty years of age and 
wished to be married. As soon as he saw Athenais 
it was a case of love at first sight, and Pulcheria, too, 
had the greatest admiration for the girl. So she was 
instructed in the Christian faith, as she was a pagan ; 
was baptized by the Patriarch Atticus; and took the 
new name of Eudocia. In 421 she was married to 
Theodosius. Pulcheria was still devoted to her, and 
instructed her in her duties as empress. Eudocia had 
one daughter, Eudoxia by name, who later on married 
the Emperor of the West, Valentinian III. 

But at length there was a falling out between Pul- 
cheria and the new Empress. Pulcheria was jealous 
of her whom she had virtually made. It was the be- 
ginning of trouble. Eudocia made a pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem, and on the way stopped at Antioch, where 
she made a speech that so delighted the citizens that 
they erected a golden statue in her honor. From this 
first pilgrimage she brought back St. Peter's chains, 
and sent half of them to her daughter in the West, 
who gave the relic to the Pope. Twenty years after 
her marriage she suffered a terrible trial, being un- 
justly suspected of infidelity with one of the officers 

[41] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of the court. He was murdered and Eudocia was 
banished. She went back to Jerusalem and remained 
there till her death, nearly twenty years after. 

Eudocia fell away from the faith into heresy for 
a time, but was finally brought back through the 
efforts of Pope St. Leo I, who wrote to her. Her hus- 
band and Pulcheria died, and Eudocia was forgotten 
by the great world in which she had once been a 
leader. But she did not mind that. She spent her 
last years in the holy places of Jerusalem, devoting 
herself to piety and charity and to the writing of re- 
ligious poetry. She built the Church of St. Stephen, 
and there she was buried after having for some years 
lived the life of a mystic. 

The next great woman among the matrons of the 
early Church was St. Galla, who lived in the sixth 
century. Her father had been a learned and virtuous 
patrician of Rome and had been unjustly put to death. 
She was made a widow before the end of the first 
year of her married life, and then, refusing to marry 
again, she gave up the world and chose for her 
dwelling a little cell near the tomb of the apostles, 
where she prayed and did charity. There is a tradi- 
tion that the Blessed Virgin appeared to her. For two 
years she suffered from cancer of the breast and led 
a life of extreme suffering by which she sanctified her 
soul. 

The last woman of this period is St. Silvia, the 
mother of Pope St. Gregory the Great. We know 
very little about her. But she belonged to a distin- 

[42] 



MATRONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 

guished family, as did her husband, and they had two 
sons, to whom she gave an excellent education. When 
her husband died she left the world and devoted her- 
self entirely to religion. But little as we do know of 
her, she deserves mention as having raised up a son 
who was a great Pope and a great Saint; and yet a 
greater honor even than that is hers in that she ob- 
tained the crown of personal sanctity. 

They were a noble line of women. They had all 
the cares of the world; they had wealth and family 
position, yet counted all but little in comparison with 
the service they gave to God. Truly the matrons of 
to-day may well look to them as the models of what 
constitutes true womanhood. 



[43l 



ST. MONICA 

(333-387) 

THE child of such prayers will never be lost." In 
these words is summed up the life-story of St. 
Monica. When she came, a broken-hearted mother, 
almost despairing of her son Augustine, who was care- 
less of her tears as he continued his life of iniquity, 
and begged a certain bishop to take pity on her desola- 
tion and pray for him for whom her own prayers 
seemed powerless, her heart received the consolation 
of what was in reality a prophecy of the power of 
mother-love to conquer even the plots of hell. The 
words, too, sum up the story of all true mother-love, 
of the mother-love that pursues relentlessly its chil- 
dren, that looks not merely for their worldly prosper- 
ity and fame — who so prosperous and famous as the 
young Augustine when his mother wept over him and 
considered him the most unfortunate of beings?- — but 
knows that all these things are valueless so long as 
the soul is an enemy of God and in danger of eternal 
suffering. So, through all the history of Christianity 
since then, Monica ever shines forth as the great 
patroness of grieving mothers, a consolation, an in- 
centive to them to continue their prayers for erring 

[44] 



ST. MONICA 

loved ones even when all seems hopeless. There would 
be more Augustines in heaven if there were more 
Monicas. Augustine became a saint, even through the 
vilest degradation, because his mother was a saint. 

We know but little of the early days of Monica. 
She was born at Tagaste, in the northern part of 
Africa, in the year 333. Those were the early days of 
the Church, which had not been long out of the 
Catacombs, out of the furnace of persecution. We 
know nothing of her parents, only that they were 
Christians, pious, and careful to bring up their chil- 
dren religiously. The family was, no doubt, fairly 
well to do and kept servants. It was to an old servant 
in this Christian home that Monica attributed her 
good training in mortification. The old servant had 
long been in the family. Augustine tells us in his 
Confessions that she had been servant to his grand- 
father, and had carried himself when he was a child. 
So long had she been in the family, a very part of it, 
that Monica's parents had the utmost confidence in 
her, and respected her for her age and her excellent 
character. To her was confided the care of the daugh- 
ters, and well did she perform the task. She did not 
pamper her charges. She felt that she had the care 
of their souls as well as their bodies, and Monica 
told Augustine how she trained them even in their 
young days to mortification. She never would let 
them take a drink of water except at their meals. 

We can fancy that good old soul as she gave her 
reason to the little girls, parched with thirst. "You 

[45] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

drink water now," she said, "because you have not 
wine in your power; but when you are married and 
are made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, you will 
scorn water, but the custom of drinking will last." 
It is but a sample of the restraint the old servant exer- 
cised. How little she knew that in her wise simplicity 
she was laying in the little Monica's heart the founda- 
tions of sanctity! 

Yet, as Monica herself told the story, the little girl 
did not always follow the advice of the old governess. 
When she was sent by her parents to draw wine out 
of the hogshead, she used to sip a little of it, until 
gradually in the exuberance of youth she got so that 
she could drink off "her little cup, brimful almost, of 
wine." She was but a little girl at the time; and one 
day when she had a dispute with one of the servants, 
the latter taunted her with what she had done, and 
called her a wine-bibber. It was enough for Monica ; 
she saw her fault and never again committed it. St. 
Augustine gives us only a glimpse of these childhood 
days of his mother. But so human is that glimpse 
that one wishes he had given more details of the life 
in what he calls "a Christian home." 

The society of northern Africa in those days was a 
peculiar mixture. The Church was growing strong, 
but there were still many remnants of idolatry. Chris- 
tians lived side by side with pagans, did business with 
them, and mingled with them socially. There was 
even intermarriage, and so it is not surprising to find 
that when Monica reached marriageable age she was 

[46] 



ST. MONICA 

betrothed to a pagan. His name was Patricius. Evi- 
dently he was a man of good family, and in the eyes 
of the world a man of honor. But the young wife 
was not overhappy with him. Being a pagan, without 
religion, he had little sense of morality. He was, in- 
deed, no better than his times, and Monica knew that 
he was often unfaithful to her. Yet she never com- 
plained, never reproached him for his infidelity, even 
though the knowledge of it must have been a bitter- 
ness to the young wife that so loved him. She simply 
prayed for him, and begged God to make him a Chris- 
tian, knowing that when he became a Christian he 
would also become chaste. 

But besides being unfaithful, Patricius was also a 
man of high temper — "fervid as in his affections, so 
in anger," says Augustine. But there never was any 
cause for him to quarrel with Monica. "She had 
learned," says Augustine, "not to resist an angry hus- 
band — not in deed only, but not even in word." When 
he would flare up about something, she would keep her 
temper, and it was only when he was cool again that 
she would answer him and explain. Even the neigh- 
bors remarked that while their husbands, who were 
so much more mild-tempered than Patricius, beat them, 
Monica was never beaten, and never had any domestic 
difference with her husband, even for a day. They 
asked Monica how she so managed affairs, and she 
told them that she kept a civil tongue in her head, and 
did not argue with her husband ; and she advised them 
to do the same. "Those wives who observed it," says 

[47] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Augustine, "found the good and returned thanks; 
those who observed it not, found no relief and suf- 
fered." 

In a word, Monica regarded her husband as her 
lord and master, and when other women complained 
of the infidelities of their husbands, she would answer 
them, half joke, whole earnest, that from the time they 
were married they should consider themselves ser- 
vants, and so remembering their condition, should not 
set themselves up against their lords. Even in those 
days Monica, in patiently bearing the disgrace which 
her husband by his loose life heaped upon her, and in 
suffering his anger, showed that she was of that strong 
womanhood of which saints are made. Even if 
Augustine had never lived, Monica would still be 
worthy of perpetual remembrance as an example of 
the ideal wife, calm and prayerful in the midst of 
difficulties that tried her soul. 

Besides the trials she had to endure from her hus- 
band, she also suffered at the hands of his mother. 
Through the ill-will of the servants, who perhaps 
sought to gain favor with the older woman by carry- 
ing stories to her, Monica was disliked by her 
mother-in-law. But in this, too, even while she knew 
that she was treated unjustly, she never complained, 
but was ever meek and respectful to the woman who 
showed so great a dislike for her. 

Monica's gentle disposition finally won over the heart 
of her mother-in-law. The old lady found that the ser- 
vants were mischief-makers, and immediately she went 

[48] 



ST. MONICA 

to her son and told him all, asking him to punish the 
meddlers. Patricius, with his usual anger, soon set 
matters right by using the whip on the servants, and 
his mother clinched the matter by telling them that 
they would get the same treatment the next time they 
sought to please her by telling stories about Monica. 
After that the two women were all kindness and sweet- 
ness to each other. 

Monica must have been a woman of wonderfully 
gentle disposition. Not only was she a peacemaker 
at home, but also among her neighbors. She had the 
great gift — as her son calls it — of never carrying 
stories. Whenever she heard one neighbor say bitter 
things about another, she did not hurry off to bring 
the news and so increase the enmity, but she hid the 
disagreeable things and repeated only what would 
help to a reconciliation. 

It is these little touches that make the life of St. 
Monica so interesting, and at the same time show her 
genuine holiness. It was not that she was a cold indi- 
vidual. We know how she must have felt when she 
knew that her husband was unfaithful. In her heart 
she must have mourned over it. Yet she did not give 
him up. She set out to win him back by her gentle- 
ness, by her love, and above all by her prayer. It was 
a long struggle, and many a woman would have given 
it up as hopeless. But not so Monica. Year after 
year she continued her life of patience, and it was 
only towards the end of his life that her husband was 
finally won back. She had prayed for his conversion 

[49] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

from paganism, and at last he expressed the wish to 
become a Christian. He was baptized, and from that 
time to his death, which took place within a year, he 
gave up the sins which had disgraced his life and was 
a model Christian. Monica had won, and one can 
imagine that even the death of her beloved husband 
lost some of its sting as she realized that she had 
brought him back to God. If Patricius saved his soul, 
who can doubt that it was through the prayers of his 
good wife? What an example to many wives who 
complain and cry about the defection of their hus- 
bands, yet never seek to win them back by prayer and 
by the holiness of their own lives ! 

For Monica was above all a practical Christian, 
Kind in word, she was also kind in deed. Like all 
saints, she had a special affection for the poor, and 
always sought opportunities to come to their aid. 
Every morning she assisted at Mass, and made other 
visits to the church and to the tombs of the martyrs 
who had died for the faith but a few years before. In 
a word, she lived chiefly for God, and, living for God, 
imitating the examples of the saints, it is no wonder 
that her prayers had such power in the conversion of 
her husband, and later on in that which has made her 
the model for grieving mothers — the conversion of 
her son Augustine. 

The chief interest of Monica's life is in her relation- 
ship with the great St. Augustine. When one thinks 
of what he accomplished for the Church, of his great 
sanctity, and then contrasts that with what he was, a 

[50] 



ST. MONICA 

very cesspool of iniquity, one realizes a little the work 
which his mother accomplished in making Augustine 
the saint out of Augustine the sinner. 

If Augustine went wrong, it was not from lack of 
care on the part of his mother to bring him up right. 
One who was so particular about her own life could 
not but be so in regard to her children. Her whole 
desire was to serve God, and, intelligent woman that 
she was, she knew that she could not serve God well 
unless she looked after the spiritual interests of her 
children, for whose souls she was responsible to God. 

But the curse in Monica's home, after all, was her 
marriage to a man that had no religion. Even though 
he was in time converted, his bad example, his irre- 
ligion, his immorality, no doubt had their influence 
upon Augustine. Like father, like son. 

Augustine was sixteen, almost a man, when his 
father became a Christian. If Augustine himself had 
been a Christian, he would have had the strength to 
keep his soul clean. But he was not. Monica herself 
wished to have him baptized in his infancy, but her 
husband opposed it. Once, when the boy was ill, he 
granted the permission, but as soon as he recovered 
the permission was withdrawn, and so the baptism was 
again deferred. In those days Patricius did not know 
any better. Perhaps he fancied that Augustine would 
advance more rapidly in the world if he remained a 
pagan. For it is evident that the father had great 
ambitions for his son. He wanted him to be a learned 
man, because it was an age in which learning was 

[51] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

highly regarded. Monica, too, wanted to see the boy 
excel in learning, though on her part she desired this 
chiefly in order that he might one day use his talents 
for the glory of God. In those days, as she sought to 
instil piety into him, no doubt she often had the desire 
to see him one day consecrated to the priesthood. She 
little knew the thorny road that was to lead him to the 
altar. 

Monica began well with Augustine. She was a thor- 
oughly Christian mother. She saw that he received 
a good Christian education, and had him enrolled 
among the catechumens. As we have said, it was not 
her fault that he was not baptized. Any one who 
knows the character of Monica knows that she must 
have saturated the soul of her boy with religion. As 
Augustine himself says in his Confessions, "From my 
tenderest infancy, I had in a manner sucked with my 
mother's milk that name of my Saviour, Thy Son; 
I kept it in the recesses of my heart; and all that 
presented itself to me without that Divine Name, 
though it might be elegant, well written, and even 
replete with truth, did not altogether carry me away." 
Not altogether; but very far — so far that only the 
continual tears and prayers of a saintly mother could 
bring him back. 

Augustine paid the price for deferring his baptism/ 
which he was eager enough to receive when he was 
ill, but which he disregarded in the fullness of his 
strength. It was a deplorable custom of the times, 
that of deferring baptism for fear of falling into sin 

[52] 



ST. MONICA 

after it. And the youth, deprived of this grace, went 
the way of his father. 

Patricius was proud of his son's great talent. But 
the opportunities of Tagaste, where they lived, were 
limited, and so he longed to have him go to the great 
city of Carthage in order to become a lawyer. But 
Patricius, while comfortable, was not rich. He did 
not have the money at hand necessary to educate 
Augustine at Carthage, and while he was busy getting 
it together the boy spent his sixteenth year at home 
with nothing to do. As Augustine said, "Who did not 
extol my father, for that beyond the ability of his 
means he would furnish his son with all necessaries 
for a journey for his studies' sake? For many far 
abler citizens did no such thing for their children. 
But yet this same father had no concern how I grew 
towards Thee, or how chaste I were; so that I were 
but copious in speech, however barren I were to Thy 
culture, O God, who art the only true and good Lord 
of Thy field, my heart." 

So through this idleness, and in spite of the warn- 
ings of his good mother, he fell into impurity. He 
even boasted of it when his companions bragged of 
their iniquity, and he made himself out even worse 
than he was so that he might be considered their 
superior in vice. He tells us that he used to steal 
just for the pleasure of stealing and because it was 
wrong. He knew how wicked he was; perhaps the 
sight of his holy mother reproached him for doing 
things which he would blush to have her know. He 

[S3] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

even prayed to be delivered from the temptations, but, 
as he tells us himself, without a sincere wish to be 
heard. 

So we find him ready to go to Carthage to begin 
his studies, a youth already corrupt. But it was only 
the beginning of his wickedness. At home there was 
some little restraint in the presence of his mother; at 
Carthage, away from home, there was none. 

There was a great deal of wickedness in Carthage. 
It was a city half pagan, and consequently a licentious 
city. The theatres were bad, and the students with 
whom Augustine mingled were for the greater part 
without any moral restraint. They made the young 
Augustine as wicked as themselves. He was by his 
talent the leader of the school, and he wanted to be 
leader in everything else — even vice. He formed an 
immoral liaison with a woman in Carthage, who bore 
him a son. One can imagine the grief of Monica, who 
had done so much and prayed so hard for her son, 
now to learn of his guilt. But it was she alone that 
wept. She bore her grief in solitude. Her husband 
had died the year before, and had died in the faith. 
Her loneliness now made it all the harder for her to 
know that this son, to whom she and her husband had 
looked to be their consolation, was now but a youth 
for whom she had to blush. It was all the worse be- 
cause Augustine was not ashamed. He had no notion 
of breaking of! the sinful life; he continued it for fif- 
teen years — fifteen years of sorrow for the mother, 

[54] 



ST. MONICA 

who prayed all that time that he might not die in his 
sins. 

But Monica was obliged to see her son fall lower 
Still. Long ago he had lost his virtue — lost it even 
as a boy. Now he lost whatever faith he had. 

Augustine everywhere received applause for his re- 
markable talent — so much so that he grew conceited in 
his learning. The faith which he had learned from 
his mother now came to be questioned. His mind 
felt superior to it. He was an easy victim, therefore, 
for the chief heretics of the day, the Manicheans, 
with their promise of a free philosophy unbridled by 
faith. It w^3 an easy doctrine, as it endeavored to 
remove moral responsibility since it denied liberty. It 
was something to justify Augustine's wicked life, and 
he grasped at it. He went at the new religion as he 
went at everything else, with great earnestness. He 
read all its books and adopted all its opinions, becom- 
ing a Manichean through and through, and even was 
apparently so sincere in it that he made converts to it. 

Sometime after this loss of faith he returned to 
his native city of Tagaste to teach rhetoric there. He 
was brazen in his heresy. His talents, his manner, 
captivated his pupils, and some of them followed him 
into the new religion. 

Monica's heart was broken. To think that a child 
of hers could turn his back on the faith which she 
regarded as her dearest possession! It was worse 
than death. And in her unflinching loyalty to the 
faith she beheld her son as an enemy of the Church, 

[55] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

a heretic, and therefore as one dead. He was, indeed, 
spiritually dead — dead to God, hence dead to her. She 
loved him as a mother must love her children, but she 
would not allow sentiment to interfere with what she 
considered her duty as a Christian and as a mother ; 
for it was, no doubt, the desire to bring Augustine to 
his senses that made Monica turn her back on him. 
She put him out of the house, and would not even let 
him eat at the same table with her. It must have torn 
her heart to do this, but the thing that counted most 
for her was the welfare of his soul. As Augustine 
writes: "And Thou sentest Thy hand from above, 
and drewest my soul out of that profound darkness, 
my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to Thee for 
me, more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their 
children. For she, by that faith and spirit which she 
had from Thee, discerned the death wherein I lay, 
and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her, 
and despisedst not the tears when, streaming down, 
they watered the ground under her eyes in every place 
where she prayed. Yea, Thou heardest her/' 

Monica had a dream in which she saw herself stand- 
ing on a wooden rule, and a shining youth coming 
towards her, cheerful and smiling upon her, herself 
overwhelmed with grief. He inquired why she wept 
daily, and she answered that she was bewailing the 
perdition of her son. The youth told her to be con- 
tented and to look and see that where she was, there 
also was Augustine. She looked and saw Augustine 
standing at her side. 

[56] 



ST. MONICA 

When she told this dream to Augustine, he told 
her it meant that one day she would follow him into 
Manicheanism, but Monica answered quickly that she 
had been told, not that she would be where Augustine 
was, but that Augustine would be where she was. But 
still Augustine remained in his error and his vice. 
For almost nine years he continued in the false re- 
ligion — "all of which time," he says, "that chaste, 
godly, and sober widow (such as Thou lovest), now 
more cheered with hope, yet no while relaxing in 
her weeping and mourning, ceased not at all hours of 
her devotions to bewail my case unto Thee/' 

What a wonderful example of perseverance in 
prayer! All these years of daily weeping and prayer 
— yet how many a mother gives up the fight if her 
first prayer is not answered! There would be more 
conversions of sons if more mothers prayed like 
Monica. So unceasing, so earnest were her prayers, 
that they made a deep impression on those who beheld 
her struggle for the soul of her son. One day she 
came to a certain bishop, and begged him to have a 
talk with Augustine and seek to convince him of his 
errors. But the bishop, knowing the condition of 
Augustine's mind at the time, refused. He knew that 
Augustine would not listen to argument, "being puffed 
up with the novelty of that heresy." "Let him alone 
awhile," said he; "only pray God for him; he will of 
himself, by reading, find what that error is, and how 
great its impiety." 

But this answer did not satisfy the broken-hearted 
[57] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

mother. All the more she urged him to see Augustine, 
and have a talk with him. And the good bishop, a 
little displeased at her importunity, said to her : "Go 
thy ways, and God bless thee, for it is not possible 
that the son of these tears shall perish." It was a 
prophecy, but more than all it was an encouragement 
to Monica to continue to pray. 

Soon after this, Monica had a fresh heart-ache in 
seeing Augustine leave home again. She had taken 
the advice of the bishop and let her son come to live 
with her, where she would have some hold on him. 
But now he was breaking the bonds again. A better 
opportunity was offered him to teach at Carthage, and 
thither he went to seek greater fame — "here proud, 
there superstitious, everywhere vain." Vanity was a 
besetting sin with him. Surely he had not learned it 
from his humble mother. And everything contributed 
to increase that vanity. He was learned, he had a 
great audience before which to display his ability. He 
entered the poetry contest, carried off the great prize, 
and was publicly honored for it. He was, in a word, 
intoxicated with the praise of the world. What chance 
had his poor mother to win him away from what was 
the breath of his life? 

But her prayers even then were beginning to have 
effect. His mind now was fully developed. He was 
thinking for himself. He saw the foolishness of the 
heresy into which he had fallen; he saw that it was 
a depraved philosophy, that it encouraged immorality 
in spite of all its fine pretence ; and he saw, too, that the 

[S3] 



ST. MONICA 

Manicheans could not hold their own against the argu- 
ments of the Catholics. They did not even know any- 
thing about the things the knowledge of which they 
had promised him, namely, the natural sciences in 
which he was so interested. He lost faith in Mani- 
cheanism, yet he did not have the courage to return 
to the Catholic faith. 

Dissatisfied with things at Carthage, Augustine de- 
termined to go to Rome. He had always longed to 
go there. So when he was twenty-nine years of age 
he made up his mind to make the voyage, confident 
that at Rome he would do better work as a teacher. 
But as soon as Monica heard of his intention, she bit- 
terly opposed his going, fearing that it might lead to 
other dangers and so delay his conversion. She did 
not waste any time lamenting. She followed him to 
the sea. She was determined to keep him from sailing, 
and if he insisted on that, she was bound she would 
sail with him. And so she held to him by force. 

Augustine was displeased at this. He would go, 
and he did not want her with him. So he made be- 
lieve to her that he was not sailing just then, that he 
had a friend whom he could not leave till he had a 
fair wind to sail. "And I lied to my mother," he 
writes, "and such a mother, and escaped." 

But Monica must have had her suspicions. She re- 
fused to return home without him, but was at last 
persuaded by him to spend the night in a near-by 
chapel dedicated to St. Cyprian. That night he quietly 
departed, even while she was asking God not to let 

[59] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

him depart. What was her surprise in the morning 
to find that Augustine had lied to her, and was now far 
away on the sea! She came out of the chapel. The 
vessel was gone, and there on the sands she stood 
wringing her hands and bemoaning the son that was 
gone; "for," as Augustine says, "she loved my being 
with her, as mothers do, but much more than they." 
The deception almost broke her heart. She little knew 
that her prayers were being answered in the departure 
of Augustine for Italy. But in spite of her grief she 
was not discouraged; for, as Augustine writes, "And 
yet, after accusing my treachery and hardheartedness, 
she betook herself again to intercede to Thee for me, 
went to her wonted place, and I to Rome." 

No sooner was he arrived at Rome than he fell 
dangerously ill with a fever. He tells us later on that 
he knew that had he died then he would have gone 
to hell for all his sins; for during the illness he had 
no desire even to be baptized. But he recovered, and 
attributed that recovery to the prayers of his mother, 
who while she was praying did not guess the terrible 
sickness he was suffering. "Couldst Thou," he asks, 
"despise and reject from Thy aid the tears of such a 
one, wherewith she begged of Thee not gold or silver, 
nor any mutable or passing good, but the salvation of 
her son's soul? Thou, by whose gift she was such? 
Never, Lord." 

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he opened 
a school at Rome, but he did not conduct it long; for 
some of the scholars left without paying their tuition, 

[60] 



ST. MONICA 

and this so revolted him that he was glad to get away 
from the city. Some people of Milan had written to 
the Prefect of Rome, asking him to send them a 
professor of rhetoric, and Augustine applied for and 
received the appointment. Among the first persons 
he met at Milan was the famous Bishop Ambrose, 
now the immortal St. Ambrose, whom he had heard 
preach. The great Ambrose was kind to him, and 
this was the way to the heart of Augustine. The con- 
fidence of Augustine, on the other hand, won its way 
to the heart of Ambrose, and he took advantage of 
the friendship to seek to convince Augustine of the 
errors of the sect to which he belonged. But while 
Augustine was soon convinced that he had been in 
error, he would not accept the Catholic faith. He 
tried everything rather than that, perhaps because he 
had the consciousness that if he became a Catholic 
he would have to renounce his sinful pleasures, for 
he was still a prey to impurity. He sought peace in 
several systems of philosophy, but to no avail. The 
true remedy was at his hand, but he did not have the 
courage to take it. 

Meanwhile Monica, as soon as she heard that Au- 
gustine was at Milan, followed him thither, after a 
stormy voyage, in which she had comforted the sailors 
and encouraged them, assuring them of a safe arrival. 
She did not sulk over Augustine's running away from 
her. She would follow him to the end, eager for his 
soul's salvation. 

The grace was beginning to work. She saw the 
[61] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

influence which Ambrose was having upon him, and 
she redoubled her prayers that it might be effective. 
Finally she had the satisfaction of seeing Augustine 
separate from the woman that had enslaved him for 
so many years. This woman left Augustine of her 
own accord, and retired to a life of penance; but her 
place was soon filled by another mistress. Augustine 
had convinced himself that it was impossible to be 
pure. Monica, knowing in her heart how his pas- 
sions were keeping him from being converted to the 
faith, arranged a marriage for him, but the girl was 
too young, and so Augustine did not marry her. He 
continued in sin, though all the time he had a fear of 
death and judgment. 

When the schools closed that year, Augustine, with 
some of his friends, retired to a country house in 
order to carry on their studies. Monica accompanied 
them. She was always the good angel. She took 
part in their conversations, and many a time lifted 
their hearts to God by the wisdom she had learned in 
prayer. 

Augustine during these days was worried in soul. 
He longed to embrace the truth, but his passions held 
him back. One day, as he wept over his iniquities 
and the slavery that held him, he heard a child in a 
neighboring house singing as if playing some game, 
"Take up and read, take up and read." He was in 
the garden at the time and had been reading the Epistle 
of St. Paul to the Romans. He opened it again at 
random, and his eyes fell on these words: "Not in 

[62] 



ST. MONICA 

rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and im- 
purities, not in contention and envy ; but put ye on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the 
flesh" (Romans xiii, 13, 14). 

He read no further. The light had come. Monica's 
prayers were heard. Then he and his friend Alypius 
went into the house to Monica. They told her the 
story, and Monica leaped with very joy and thanked 
God. Her sorrow had been turned into joy. Augus- 
tine resigned his professorship, and in the year 387, 
at Easter, he was baptized by St. Ambrose in Milan. 

After this Augustine and his friends decided to re- 
tire into the solitude of Africa. But he remained at 
Milan, finishing certain books he had begun to write, 
until the fall, when they began their journey. After 
much travel they arrived at Ostia, and there it was 
that Monica died, while they were resting preparatory 
to the new voyage. It is Augustine that tells us the 
story of her end. One day the mother and the son 
were alone, sitting at a window overlooking the gar- 
den. They were talking of the things of God, won- 
dering what the life of the saints in heaven might be. 
They were both almost in ecstasy. At length she 
said : "Son, for mine own part, I have no further 
delight in anything in this life. What I do here any 
longer, and to what end I am here, I know not, now 
that my hopes in this world are accomplished. One 
thing there was for which I desired to linger for a while 
in this life — that I might see thee a Catholic Christian 
before I died. My God hath done this for me more 

[63] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

abundantly, that I should now see thee, withal, despis- 
ing earthly happiness, become his servant. What do 
I here?" 

Augustine could not remember what answer he had 
made her. Five days later she became sick of a 
fever. One day she fell into a swoon. All hastened 
to gather about her. She recovered, and looking at 
Augustine and her other son, Navigius, she asked, 
"Where was I?" And then she said: "Here shall 
you bury your mother." 

Augustine said nothing, but Navigius spoke, telling 
her he hoped she would die in her native land. But 
she checked him, giving him another look. "Behold 
what he says," she remarked to Augustine; and then 
she said to them both : "Lay this body anywhere ; let 
not the care for that anyway disquiet you; this only 
I request, that you would remember me at the Lord's 
altar, wherever you be." And then she was still. 

Augustine, however, wondered, for he had known 
how anxious she had always been to be buried beside 
her husband. Later he had heard from one of his 
friends, who had asked her if she were not afraid to 
leave her body so far away from her native city, that 
she had replied: "Nothing is far to God; nor is 
it to be feared lest at the end of the world He should 
not recognize whence He were to raise me up." 

And so on the ninth day of her illness, in her fifty- 
sixth year, she passed to God. 

"I closed her eyes," said Augustine, "and there 
flowed withal a mighty sorrow into my heart, which 

[6 4 ] 



ST. MONICA 

was overflowing into tears; mine eyes at the same 
time, by the violent command of my mind, drank up 
their fountain wholly dry ; and woe was me in such a 
strife! But when she breathed her last, the boy 
Adeodatus [his son] burst out into a loud lament; 
then, checked by us all, held his peace. In like man- 
ner, also, a childish feeling in me, which was, through 
my heart's youthful voice, finding its vent in weeping, 
was checked and silenced. For we thought it not 
fitting to solemnize that funeral with tearful lament 
and groanings ; for thereby do they for the most part 
express grief for the departed, as though unhappy, or 
altogether dead. Of this we were assured on good 
grounds, the testimony of her good conversation and 
her faith unfeigned. 

"What, then, was it," he continues, "which did 
grievously pain me within, but a fresh wound wrought 
through the sudden wrench of that most sweet and 
dear custom of living together? I joyed, indeed, in 
her testimony, when, in that her last sickness, mingling 
her endearments with my acts of duty, she called me 
'dutiful/ and mentioned, with great affection of love, 
that she never had heard any harsh or reproachful 
sound uttered by my mouth against her. But yet, 
O God, who madest us, what comparison is there 
betwixt that honor that I paid to her, and her slavery 
for me? Being, then, forsaken of so great comfort 
in her, my soul was wounded, and that life rent 
asunder, as it were, which of hers and mine together 
had been made but one." 

[6s ] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

The friends then joined in singing a psalm. And 
while good neighbors prepared the body for burial, 
Augustine talked with his friends and neighbors upon 
"something fitting the time." It was hard work keep- 
ing back the tears ; and he tells us that those who lis- 
tened to him thought that he had no sense of sor- 
row. But his whole soul within shook with grief. 

The saintly woman was carried to burial. But 
neither at the Mass nor at the grave was there weep- 
ing. It did not seem to be a time for tears. Augus- 
tine struggled with his grief, and tried to 
shake it off. And then, he says, "by little 
and little I recovered my former thoughts of 
Thy handmaid, her holy conversation towards 
Thee, her holy tenderness and observance towards us, 
whereof I was suddenly deprived; and I was minded 
to weep in Thy sight, for her and for myself, in her 
behalf and in my own. And I gave way to the tears 
which I before restrained, to overflow as much as they 
desired; reposing my heart upon them; and it found 
rest in them, for it was in Thy ears, not in those of 
man, who would have scornfully interpreted my weep- 
ing. And now, Lord, in writing I confess it unto 
Thee. Read it who will, and interpret it how he 
will; and if he find sin therein, that I wept my 
mother for a small portion of an hour (the mother 
who for the time was dead to mine eyes, who had for 
many years wept for me that I might live in Thine 
eyes), let him not deride me; but rather, if he be one 
of large charity, let him weep himself for my sins 

[66] 



ST. MONICA 

unto Thee, the Father of all the brethren of Thy 
Christ" 

But now, after he had written that, Augustine tells 
us that he poured forth a different kind of tears — 
tears for her soul. Holy as he knew her to be, he 
would not say that she did not need prayers. He 
beseeches God for the sins of his mother. And then 
he concludes: "May she rest, then, in peace with the 
husband before and after whom she had never any; 
whom she obeyed, with patience bringing forth fruit 
to Thee, that she might win him also unto Thee." He 
begs then that all who read his Confessions shall re- 
member at the altar Monica and her husband, "that 
so my mother's last request of me may through my 
Confessions more than through my prayers be, 
through the prayers of many, more abundantly ful- 
filled to her." 

St. Monica does not need our prayers. During all 
these centuries she has enjoyed the vision of God. 
Rather do we pray to her, while we marvel at her 
wonderful holiness. She had trials enough to daunt 
even a fervid soul. But God allowed all these trials, 
both from her husband and her son, those she loved 
the most, as if He had the purpose through her ex- 
ample of encouraging other wives and other mothers. 
What more helpless case than that of Augustine — a 
man without morals, without faith? Who would 
dare to prophesy that this worldling would become 
a great bishop, a great doctor of the Church, a great 
saint? Who? Nobody but Monica. With her 

[67] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

mother-love sanctified by penance and prayer, she 
braved everything, knowing that faith can move 
mountains. She is one of the most human characters 
in history, the tender mother who knew that the great- 
est glory she could obtain for her son was that of 
being converted to God. Never will the world for- 
get her, for she has shown to what heights true 
motherhood can reach. 



[69] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

ONE thing that stands out in the history of the 
Church is that sanctity is possible to all. The 
Litany of the Saints is the most cosmopolitan cata- 
logue in existence. It is the census-book of the "great 
multitude, which no man could number, of all nations 
and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before 
the throne, and in the sight of the Lamb, clothed with 
white robes, and palms in their hands." The young 
and the old, the rich and the poor, the learned and 
the ignorant, the king and the peasant, the queen and 
her slave, from every walk of life they advance to 
the throne of God. What a consolation there is in 
that! It is for us an act of hope. 

Sometimes the possibility of sanctity seems so re- 
mote. We fancy that if our lot in life were different, 
we would serve God better. But that is generally a 
delusion. The chances are that if we are cold and 
careless to God in our present circumstances, we would 
be just the same in any other walk of life. If we but 
lived in the time of Christ, we say, how blessed were 
we to follow him! Perhaps we would have followed 
Him ; perhaps, on the other hand, we would have been 
of the mob that demanded His blood. For if we ear- 
nestly desire sanctity, have we not at our disposal the 

[69] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

same graces which the friends of the Master had? 
And with that thought we should make the most of 
our state in life. 

Most of us are just where God wants us to be. All 
are not called to the cloister. There is God's work 
to be done in the world as in the nunnery; and while 
we know that they are specially blessed who have a 
vocation to the religious life, we also know, as St. 
Augustine showed in his book On the Advantages of 
Matrimony, that there have been many married 
women who have surpassed many virgins in sanctity. 
Whatever the condition of life, God can sanctify it. 
It is easy for the poor to be good, say the rich; it is 
easy for the rich to be good, say the poor. Anything 
for an excuse, when all in their heart know that God 
will come to dwell in their cottage or in their palace, 
if they but invite Him. 

Yet there is something especially striking in the 
lives of those who, living in the midst of wealth, have 
chosen poverty ; who, when they might be flattered and 
fawned upon, have made themselves humble. It re- 
quires a great deal of heroism for a queen to be hum- 
ble ; rather, it requires a great grace from God There 
are so many temptations for queens to consider them- 
selves as little less than God Himself. Surely, it is 
hard for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of 
Heaven; hard for the man that wears a crown; hard, 
but not impossible. How many kings have been 
raised to the altars of God ! How many queens, too ! 
And through what difficulties ! It is not an easy thing. 

[70] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

The consciousness of power, of superiority, is a sweet 
morsel. St. Augustine would have been converted 
long before he was, if he had not been so conceited 
about his talents. Men and women, from being wor- 
shipped, get to worship themselves. Somehow it is 
in the nature of things, and we who find fault with 
the dignity assumed by the great would be, perhaps, 
overbearingly proud if the tables were turned. The 
notorious Madame Roland, when she was a poor, un- 
noticed woman, used to protest against the worldly 
glory of the regal Marie Antoinette. But as soon as 
Madame Roland got a little power with the Giron- 
dists she was overbearing. It was harder to see her 
than the Queen. A little power made her lose her 
head in more senses than one. 

So that it gives our Catholic souls a thrill when we 
see women, having all that the world can give, living 
amid the temptations inseparable from the court, yet 
becoming poor in spirit, humble maid-servants of the 
Lord, their greatest glory to doff their crown and cry 
out, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord!" There have 
been many of these noble women in all ages of the 
Church. During the middle ages there were many 
queens who, though on their thrones, lived the life 
of the cloister. Such were the wife of Charlemagne; 
Cunegonde, wife of Henry I, King of England ; Agnes, 
wife of Henry III; Elizabeth, wife of the Emperor 
Albert, first Archduke of Austria; Radegonde, wife 
of Clotaire; Adoere, wife of Chilperic; Bathilde, wife 
of Clovis II ; and Agnes of Bohemia, betrothed to the 

[71] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Emperor Frederick II. To relate all the great Catho- 
lic queens who have, amid their worldly glory, edified 
civilization would be but to give a catalogue of names. 
From the vast number we have chosen those of special 
sanctity — those who stepped from their throne in the 
world to a throne in heaven, raised to the altars of 
God as canonized saints. 

The first queen-saint that we have memory of is 
the great St. Helena, who, according to the old tradi- 
tion that persists from the fifth century, discovered 
the true Cross in the place where it had been buried 
in Jerusalem. Helena was one of the women who did 
not lose their heads by being lifted from lowliness to 
a throne. In the wildest dreams of her girlhood she 
never fancied anything approaching the reality of her 
later life. She was born in humble circumstances, 
far removed from royalty. St. Ambrose tells us that 
she was an innkeeper. It was while she was doing 
this humble work in her native city of Drepanum on 
the Nicomedian Gulf that she met the Roman general 
Constantius Chlorus. He fell in love with her and 
married her. Perhaps if he had foreseen that one day 
he would be the great Roman Emperor, he would not 
have condescended to wed the poor innkeeper. Any- 
way, when, in the year 292, he became co-regent of 
the West, he began to think of making a marriage that 
would mean more to him politically. So without any 
scruple he put aside the wife that was good enough 
for him when he was a mere Roman officer, and mar- 
ried Theodora, the stepdaughter of the Emperor Maxi- 

[72] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

mianus Herculius, who had been his patron. Helena 
had then been his wife nearly twenty years, and it is 
easy to picture her grief at being put aside for another 
woman. This was especially so from the fact that in 
274 she had borne to him a son, the boy who was af- 
terwards to be so glorious as Constantine the Great. 
There is nothing in all history more affecting than 
the love of Constantine for his mother. He must have 
deeply resented the action of his father in setting her 
aside. At the time of his mother's rejection he was 
about eighteen. He was loyal to her, and no doubt 
longed for the time when he could restore her to the 
position from which his father had dethroned her. 
When he did succeed to the throne in 306, his first 
thought was for her. He summoned her to the court, 
gave her the title of Augusta, and ordered that all 
honor should be paid to her as the mother of the 
sovereign. He even had coins struck bearing her 
image. She was rewarded for her days of humilia- 
tion. Up to this time she was not a Christian, but 
after Constantine had won his immortal victory, when 
the miraculous cross was seen in the sky, she became 
a Christian through his influence, and, as Eusebius 
says, "such a devout servant of God, that one might 
believe her to have been from her childhood a disciple 
of the Redeemer of mankind." It was in the great 
design of God that the poor pagan innkeeper was now 
a great Christian empress, for from the very moment 
of her conversion she used her influence and her 
wealth to spread Christianity. She built many 

[73] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

churches all over the empire, and especially in the 
Holy Land. She was an old woman when she under- 
took to make a pilgrimage to Palestine. That was 
the land she loved above all others, and in spite of her 
years she gave herself untiringly to the work of ex- 
ploration. There is an old tradition that she discov- 
ered the Holy Sepulchre and near it the instruments 
of Our Lord's Passion, and built a temple as a shrine 
for the true Cross, part of which she brought home 
to her son Constantine, and part of which she sent to 
Rome. 

Helena helped everybody. She remembered the 
day when she was poor herself, and so the poor were 
especially dear to her. And everywhere she went over 
the vast empire, she always brought her generosity, 
delighting in devoting her wealth to the building and 
decorating of churches and the helping of religious 
communities. Constantine loved her devotedly. He 
delighted to honor her, and as one proof of this he 
rebuilt her native town, where she had been so lowly, 
and decreed that it should be called, after her, Helen- 
opolis, the city of Helen. And then, when she was 
an old woman of eighty years and had returned from 
the Holy Land, she had the great happiness of dying 
in the arms of the son who, though occupying the 
greatest position in the world, found his greatest joy 
in honoring the humble mother that bore him. If 
Constantine was great, cannot we attribute much of 
his greatness to the fact that he had a great mother, 
whose joy was not to queen it and to show her im- 

[74] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

portance in the world, but even as empress to live 
humbly, to help the poor, and to bring glory to the 
Church of God? 

As a contrast to the life of this woman who was 
so loved by her son, we have another great empress 
who lived in after years (she died in 876) — the Em- 
press Theodora, who is ranked by the Greeks among 
the saints. Her husband was a brute and delighted in 
persecuting those who defended the use of images 
during the Iconoclast heresy. By her mildness and 
gentleness she softened his temper, and on his death 
she became regent during the minority of her son. 
She put an end to the Iconoclast heresy, which had 
endured for one hundred and twenty years; and she 
governed the empire with the greatest glory for twelve 
years. But she got no thanks for it. She was ban- 
ished by her son and his uncle, and after that devoted 
herself to preparation for death in the monastery 
where she lived for eight years. 

The next great queen-saint after St. Helena is St. 
Clotilda, Queen of the Franks. She was the daugh- 
ter of a king, Chilperic, King of the Burgundians, and 
his wife Caretena. Both the King and his wife were 
Catholics, and Clotilda received a religious education 
from her mother, a remarkable woman who lived to 
a great age. It was a religious family, and we find 
one of Clotilda's sisters, Chrona, founding the Church 
of St. Victor at Geneva and taking the religious habit. 
Soon after the death of her father, Clotilda was mar- 
ried to Clovis, King of the Franks. It was a happy 

i7$] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

marriage. They loved each other, and Clotilda made 
use of that love to persuade her husband to become a 
Catholic. The King, however, at first would not listen 
to her appeals. 

Clovis had allowed their first child to be baptized; 
but, as he died in infancy, the grieving father used 
that as an argument against the God of Clotilda and 
refused to serve such a God. Nevertheless, when the 
second son was born he allowed him to be baptized, 
even though he refused himself to be baptized. But 
the good Queen was not disheartened. She prayed 
continually for his conversion, and finally had the hap- 
piness of seeing her prayers answered. The occasion 
of his conversion was the battle against the Alemanni. 
He saw his army about to yield, and then in his fear 
of defeat called upon the God of Clotilda, promising 
that if he were victorious he would become a Catholic. 
He won the victory, and then, true to his promise, 
was baptized at Christmas, 496, his sister and three 
thousand of his warriors embracing the faith at the 
same time. It was a great victory for Christianity, 
meaning as it did by the conversion of Clovis the 
establishment of the Church among a great . people. 
And that fact, with all that it has meant to civiliza- 
tion, was due to the piety of one woman, to whom 
religion meant more than everything else in the world. 

Clotilda had four sons and one daughter. Her 
life was wrapt up in them, as became a pious Chris- 
tian mother. Queen though she was, her life was one 
of retirement, for during the lifetime of her husband 

[76] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

we search in vain for any account of her. Clovis died 
in the year 511, and Clotilda had him buried in the 
Church of the Apostles, later called the Church of 
St. Genevieve, which she and he had built as a mauso- 
leum. 

Clotilda had known great happiness with Clovis, 
but as soon as he was gone her sorrows began. Her 
widowhood was a cross. She saw one of her sons, 
Clodomir, make war against his cousin Sigismund 
and put him to death with his wife and children. 
Later on Clodomir was killed in war by the brother 
of Sigismund, and Clotilda had the new task of car- 
ing for his three little boys. Added to that misery, 
her two other sons, Childebert and Clotaire, who had 
divided between them the inheritance of their dead 
brother, set about the murder of the little ones in 
order that later in life they might not demand their 
father's possessions. They got the children away 
from the care of Clotilda and murdered the two elder. 
The third escaped and entered a monastery. Clotilda, 
pious woman that she was, was heart-broken at these 
terrible crimes against her own and by her own. She 
could stay in Paris no longer, and withdrew to Tours, 
where, by the tomb of St. Martin, to whom she had 
great devotion, she spent the rest of her life in prayer 
and works of charity. 

But even then she was not allowed to be at peace. 
Her daughter Clotilda had been cruelly treated by her 
husband, Almaric, King of the Visigoths, and had 
appealed for help to her brother Childebert, who waged 

[77] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

a war against Almaric in which Almaric was killed. 
The young queen Clotilda died on the way home from 
the hardships she had to endure. Finally the two 
brothers Childebert and Clotaire began to quarrel, and 
engaged in war against each other. Clotilda threw 
herself on her knees and begged St. Martin not to 
permit the shedding of any more blood in her fam- 
ily. All night long she remained on her knees, weep- 
ing and praying. 

Her prayers were heard. A sudden tempest arose 
and dispersed the two armies. The poor mother's 
time of trial was over. She died in the year 545, at 
the age of seventy-one, after a widowhood of thirty- 
four years, and was buried beside her husband and 
children in Paris. 

Clotilda lived rather the life of a nun than a queen. 
And yet hers was not the quiet life of the cloister. 
She lived in times little removed from barbarism. 
That is evident from the crimes of her own children. 
They were crimes that tore her heart, not only on 
account of her great . mother-love, but because they 
were terrible sins against God. It was through these 
trials, however, that her soul was sanctified. They 
were her road of the Cross. And surely every griev- 
ing mother must find comfort and strength in think- 
ing of the holy motherhood of the great St. Clotilda. 

From the France of St. Clotilda we pass to the 
England of St. Etheldreda, Queen of Northumbria. 
She was born about the year 630, the daughter of 
Anna, the King of East Anglia. When she was still 

[78] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

very young her father gave her in marriage to Ton- 
bert, a subordinate prince, from whom she received the 
Isle of Ely, where she afterwards lived and died. She 
never lived in wedlock with him. He died soon after 
the marriage, and the young widow gave herself over 
to the religious life. Her father, however, was un- 
willing that she should enter the cloister, and so he 
had her married to Egfrid, a mere boy fourteen years 
old, who was heir to the throne of Northumbria. 
From her young husband she received more property, 
but she gave it to St. Wilfrid to found the minster of 
St. Andrew. The young husband appealed to St. 
Wilfrid to make her come and live with him rather 
than lead the life of a religious. But the Saint per- 
suaded him to let her remain awhile in the nunnery. 
At last, fearing that Egfrid would come and carry 
her off by force, she left there and came with two 
attendants to her possessions at Ely, and there began 
the foundation of the minster of Ely. Her relatives 
gave her the necessary means to continue the work, 
and it was there that, soon after, she died from the 
plague. At Ely, in the church founded by her, she 
was buried, and for many centuries her body was the 
object of devout veneration. 

"Happy as a queen," sometimes we say. We are 
so apt to think that a queen, with her power and her 
wealth, must be happy. Yet there have been queens 
that sacrificed all this, eager for the quiet life of re- 
ligion, wherein they might serve God and sanctify 
their souls, which they considered as of so much 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

greater value than all the kingdoms of the world. 
Little do we know of St. Etheldreda, yet that little 
is enough for us to learn from her the truth that the 
great thing in life is the friendship of God, even 
though it may lead away from thrones. 

St. Etheldreda recalls another English queen that 
became a saint. This was St. Sexburga. She was 
also the daughter of a king. It was a saintly family, 
for St. Hilda was a sister of her mother. Sexburga 
married the King of Kent, and they were a happy, de- 
voted couple. When he died she entered the religious 
life, and succeeded her sister, St. Etheldreda, as ab- 
bess. Sexburga' s daughter, Ermenilda, was also a 
saint, and was married to the King of Mercia; like- 
wise her sister, St. Withburg. Surely sanctity flour- 
ished in those days, when we find so many women 
of royal blood following the way of the Cross. 

The life of St. Etheldreda reminds us of another 
woman who might have been an empress, yet refused 
the dignity, that would almost turn any woman's head, 
in order to hide herself in the cloister. This was the 
Blessed Agnes of Bohemia, herself the daughter of 
a king and a relative of the great St. Elizabeth of 
Hungary. She was betrothed to Frederick II, Em- 
peror of Germany, but fled from him and became a 
nun. The Emperor was, of course, disappointed, but 
said he : "If she had left me for a mortal man, I would 
have taken vengeance with the sword, but I cannot 
take offence because in preference to me she has 
chosen the King of Heaven." Yet what sublime cour- 

[&>] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

age it takes to choose the King of Heaven in prefer- 
ence to the glitter of an earthly crown! 

History is filled with examples of this Christian 
courage in the women who have set aside crowns in 
order to serve God more faithfully. Ghisla, the sis- 
ter of Charlemagne, refused to marry the son of the 
Eastern Emperor and withdrew into a monastery; 
Catherine of Lorraine refused to be the wife of the 
Emperor Maximilian, became a Benedictine nun, and 
gave to the Benedictine monastery which she founded 
at Nancy all the jewels which various princes had 
given her. 

There was, not so far from our own times, Christine 
of Sweden, who renounced her crown in order to be- 
come a Catholic. There was the Empress Agnes who 
governed Bavaria for seven years in peace, and then, 
when she saw disturbances and dissensions arising, 
gave up her high place in the world and entered a 
monastery for the love of Christ. St. Cuthburge, 
too, a sister to King Ina and married to another king, 
Alfred of Northumbria, left all the glory of the world 
and went into a monastery, where she led a life of 
the greatest sacrifice. There was St. Kyneburge, the 
daughter of the pagan King of Mercia. She Was 
married to Alcfrid, King of Bernicia. They lived a 
life of perpetual continence, and when she was left 
a widow in the bloom of her youth she renounced the 
world and entered a nunnery which was built by her 
and her brother. She was a woman of great sanctity 
and of great charity. Her sister also entered the same 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

monastery and died a saint. St. Kinga, another queen, 
was the daughter of the King of Hungary and the 
granddaughter of the Emperor of Constantinople. 
She was married to another king, Boleslas of Poland, 
and lived with him in chastity. Her life was one of 
prayer, mortification, and charity; she waited upon 
the poor in the hospitals; and finally, when the King 
died, she became a nun. 

Another example of sanctity is St. Rodegunde. The 
daughter of a king, she was carried off at the age of 
twelve by King Clotaire as part of the spoils of war. 
He educated her and made her his wife. But he was 
not overpleased at her great virtue. He used to say 
that he had married a nun and not a queen. She was 
bitterly persecuted, but was patient under it all. Fi- 
nally, when her brother was assassinated at the insti- 
gation of her husband, she ran away from the court 
and gave herself up to a life of hardship, sleeping on 
a bed of sackcloth and ashes. 

All this sounds like a mere catalogue of names. 
The lives of all these royal women are all according 
to the same formula. But it is according to the for- 
mula that tells us the wisdom of seeking first the 
Kingdom of God. 

One of the most interesting and charming char- 
acters in all history is St. Bathilde, who from slavery 
became Queen of France. Her career is more like 
fiction than history. She was a slave in the house of 
the Mayor of Neustria, being a servant of his wife. 
She attracted notice by her unusual qualities of mind 

[82] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

and by her piety, so much so that the Mayor had the 
utmost confidence in her and gave into her care the 
management of many of the affairs of his household. 
So great was his admiration for the slave, that after 
his wife died he wanted to marry her. But Bathilde 
would not listen to him, fled from the palace, and 
did not return there until she heard that he had mar- 
ried again. But a greater dignity was in store for 
her. 

One day King Clovis II met her in the Mayor's pal- 
ace, and he was so struck by her beauty and by the fine 
things said in her praise that he freed her and then 
married her in 649. Bathilde was too sensible a 
woman to lose her head at the new honor. She was 
always humble as queen — humble as when she had 
been a slave. Her new dignity only gave her more 
time to pray and a better chance to do the works of 
charity which she always loved. Seven years after 
the marriage, Clovis died, leaving three sons, Clo- 
thaire, Childeric and Thierry. The oldest was pro- 
claimed king by the assembly of the nobles as Clo- 
thaire III; and as he was but five years of age, his 
mother was made regent, ruling a kingdom where 
but a few years before she had been a poor slave! 

Bathilde applied herself to the work of governing 
the kingdom, and, aided by good advice, she made 
many reforms, among other things abolishing the cus- 
tom of trading in Christian slaves. She founded many 
charitable and religious institutions ; she even desired to 
become a religious, but her duties kept her at court. 

[83] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Finally, when her children were well established in 
their respective territories, she was able to carry out 
her wish. She retired from the world and went to 
live in the Abbey of Chelles near Paris. She put aside 
all her royal insignia, and wished to be considered the 
lowliest in the convent, even taking her position after 
the novices and serving the sick and the poor with 
her own hands. It was now a life of prayer and toil, 
and she would allow no one to refer to her past dig- 
nity as queen. 

So she lived the life of religion for fifteen years, 
edifying all by her holiness and humility. She was a 
simple handmaid of the Lord. From slavery she had 
come to a throne, and now from the throne back to 
slavery — the slavery of a follower of Christ — an- 
other wonderful lesson that there is more real happi- 
ness in humbly serving God than in queening it over 
a great kingdom. 

God has raised up His saints in every nation. From 
France we pass to Germany and behold another great 
queen-saint in St. Matilda. She was born in West- 
phalia about the year 895, and was brought up in the 
monastery of Erfurt. The German king, Henry I, 
called "the Fowler," married her in 909 at Wahl- 
hausen, which he gave to her as her dowry. 

Matilda was a great mother even in a worldly sense. 
She was the mother of Otto I, Emperor of Germany; 
of Henry, Duke of Bavaria; of St. Bruno, Arch- 
bishop of Cologne; of Gerberga, wife of Louis IV of 
France; and of Hedwig, wife of Hugh Capet. In 918 

[84] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

her husband became King of Germany, where he 
reigned for seventeen years. She had wonderful in- 
fluence over him, and when he died he bequeathed her 
great possessions. She was deserving of it all, for as 
queen she was always humble, full of piety and char- 
ity to the poor. 

Yet she had her troubles. The King wanted his old- 
est son to succeed him, but Matilda's choice was her 
favorite son, Henry; and on the plea that he was the 
first-born after her husband became king, she induced 
some of the nobles to vote for him. But she was not 
successful. Otto was elected king. Three years later 
the defeated Henry revolted against his brother, but 
was unsuccessful and submitted, finally being made 
Duke of Bavaria by Otto at the wish of Matilda. 

Henry was ungrateful to the mother that did so 
much for him. He and Otto joined in persecuting her 
because they said she had impoverished the crown by 
her too great charity. To satisfy them she renounced 
the property her husband had given her and returned 
to her villa in Westphalia. Later on, when misfor- 
tunes befell the sons, they begged her pardon and im- 
plored her to return to the palace. 

Matilda's days were filled with good works. She 
built many churches and monasteries and supported 
them. All her zeal was for the glory of God, and at 
last, in 968, at the age of seventy-three, she died in 
one of the convents she had founded and was buried 
there by the side of her husband. So great was her 
piety that immediately after her death she was vener- 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ated as a saint. A great mother, a great queen, be- 
cause she was a great saint! 

After all, the lives of all these queens tell the same 
story. The epitaph of all could be the same — she was 
pious, she was charitable, she loved God more than 
she loved her crown. 

The same story is true of St. Adelaide. She was 
the daughter of a king, Rudolph II of Burgundy. He 
had been at war with Hugh of Provence for the crown 
of Italy. Finally they made peace, and one of the 
conditions was that Adelaide, then only two years of 
age, should marry Hugh's son, Lothaire. The mar- 
riage took place fourteen years later, when Adelaide 
was sixteen. Her father had died in the meantime, 
and her mother had married Hugh. Then it was that 
Berengarius claimed the crown of Italy for himself, 
and forced Hugh to abdicate in favor of Lothaire. 
Berengarius is supposed to have poisoned Lothaire in 
prison. He tried then to persuade Adelaide to marry 
his son Adalbert. She refused and was thrown into 
prison. 

A priest named Martin rescued her through an 
underground passage, and concealed her in the woods, 
where he supported her by the fish he caught. From 
there the Duke of Canossa carried her off to his 
castle. Meanwhile the Italian nobles were tired of 
the rule of Berengarius, and prevailed on Otho the 
Great to invade Italy. After doing this he married 
Adelaide at Christmas, 951. 

So much did the people of Italy love her that it 
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THE QUEEN SAINTS 

was easy for Otho to subjugate them. And not only 
in Italy was she loved. She was idolized by the Ger- 
man people as well while her husband lived. But when 
he died her troubles began. When her son Otho II 
ruled, she had to suffer from the jealousy of his wife ; 
moreover, she was made to suffer because they blamed 
her for being too charitable. It was the same charge 
that was made against St. Matilda and St. Elizabeth 
of Hungary. At any rate, she left the court for the 
sake of peace and went to live at Pavia. For a time 
she was reconciled to her son's family, but again 
the same troubles broke out in the reign of her grand- 
son, owing to the enmity of her daughter-in-law, who 
was still jealous of the popularity of Adelaide. At 
length, after the death of the daughter-in-law, 
Adelaide was summoned from her seclusion to be 
regent. It was a time to show the true character of 
the woman. She showed no spirit of revenge to those 
who had been against her. She was a big-hearted 
woman who could not stoop to pettiness. Her rule 
was one of great wisdom. Her court was said to be 
more like a religious house than a worldly palace. 
Everywhere she built churches and monasteries and 
labored hard for the conversion of the pagans of 
the North. 

Her last act was one of devotion. She left home 
to go to Burgundy to reconcile her nephew with his 
subjects, and on the journey died at Seltz in Alsace 
in 1015, at the age of eighty- four — a woman who had 
spent her best days in serving God. 

[87] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Sometimes we find two saints sitting on the same 
throne, as in the case of St. Cunegonde and her hus- 
band St. Henry. Both her father and mother were 
very pious and so trained her. Henry was Duke of 
Bavaria when she married him, but he was afterwards 
chosen King of the Romans, and then she was crowned 
queen, on which occasion she made great presents to 
the churches of Paderborn, where the coronation took 
place. They then went to Rome and there received the 
imperial crown. 

Before her marriage she had with Henry's consent 
made a vow of virginity. But in spite of that she was 
calumniated to him, and to prove her innocence of the 
charges walked over red-hot ploughshares without 
being hurt. 

They were a loving couple. When he died in 1024 
she gave away all her property, put off her royal robes, 
and donned a poor habit. She became the lowliest 
of women, and did not wish even to be reminded that 
once she had been an empress. She led a life of hard 
labor, and gave most of her time to the sick and the 
poor. In this manner of life she spent fifteen years; 
and finally, worn out by these mortifications, she died 
a poor woman, to receive an eternal crown for the 
one which she had sacrificed in order to sanctify her 
soul. 

How much a queen can accomplish for the good of 
her people and for the spread of religion is evident in 
the lives of all these holy women, and is especially 
evident in the life of her who, during the ages of 

[88] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

faith, was such an inspiration to her subjects — St. 
Margaret of Scotland. She belonged to a royal family, 
being granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and a niece 
of St. Edward the Confessor. When Canute was de- 
clared King of England he was made guardian of the 
sons of Edmund Ironside, Edward and Edmund. But 
he secretly had designs on their life, and sent them to 
the King of Sweden to have them murdered, so that 
they might not claim the possessions that belonged 
to them. There is a tradition that the King of 
Sweden, to save them, sent them to the King of 
Hungary, by whom they were protected and educated. 
Edmund died, but Edward married Agatha, a sister 
of the Queen and a splendid woman, and had by her 
three children, Edgar, Christina, and Margaret. 

When Edward the Confessor succeeded to the 
throne of England, he invited Edward with his chil- 
dren to return from Hungary to England, where Ed- 
ward died three years later. When William the 
Conqueror became king after the battle of Hastings, 
many Englishmen wanted to make Edgar, the brother 
of St. Margaret, king, since he was the lawful Saxon 
heir. But he was not strong enough, and so, fearing 
the tyranny of William, he left the country, taking 
his sister Margaret with him, and sailed for the Con- 
tinent. But a storm drove the vessel to Scotland, and 
there the two exiles were kindly received by King 
Malcolm, who himself had once been an exile when he 
fled after Macbeth had murdered his father Duncan 

[89] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and usurped the throne. But later he had defeated 
Macbeth and was now King of Scotland. 

William the Conqueror demanded that he should 
return Margaret and her brother, but he refused, and 
war ensued, in which Malcolm was victorious. Soon 
he fell in love with Margaret. It is said that her 
beauty was extraordinary, and this, added to her wit 
and her great piety and virtue, won over the whole 
court to her. It was a great honor to be asked to 
marry the King, but she was not eager for the union. 
All her life was taken up with meditation and prayer 
and in helping the poor, so that she had thoughts of 
devoting herself to God in the religious life. But 
finally, after serious thought, she decided to marry 
Malcolm, and was crowned Queen of Scotland in 
1070, when she was twenty- four. 

She brought a great fortune to the King; but her 
greatest fortune was her own heart. The King loved 
her devotedly. He was rough and unpolished, but 
upright and free from wickedness. Margaret had 
great influence over him. She softened his temper, 
cultivated his mind, polished his manners, and in- 
stilled deep piety into his soul. So great was her in- 
fluence over him that he even followed her advice in 
ruling the kingdom. By her influence he became one 
of the most virtuous of kings that ever sat on the 
throne of Scotland. And while she was interested in 
all these things that looked to the welfare of the king- 
dom, she was more than all devoted to the things of 

[90] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

God. It was her prayers, her charity, that brought in 
those days so much happiness to Scotland. 

They had a large family — six sons, three of whom 
ruled as kings of Scotland, and two daughters — Maud, 
who married Henry I, King of England, and Mary, 
who married the Count of Boulogne. Needless to say, 
all these children received a good Christian training. 
Not only did the Queen see that good masters were 
provided for them, but she herself instructed them. 
Her first care was that they should be good Catholics. 
That to her was more important than their royal 
blood. In that court the only recommendation to the 
royal favor was virtue, and to want devotion was the 
most certain disgrace. With her the whole kingdom 
appeared as one large family of which she had to take 
care. Hence it was her first aim to correct all abuses, 
and to make the people love religion. Not only did 
she attend to the religious education of her people, 
but she aimed also at teaching them the useful and 
polite arts, and had her husband make many good 
laws for this purpose. And with all this work she had 
plenty of time for the poor. Wherever she went, she 
was surrounded by the widows and the orphans and 
the other poor ones, who regarded her as their mother. 
She would even wash the feet of the poor, and be- 
fore sitting down to her own meals would serve nine 
little orphans and twenty-four grown-up poor. Often, 
especially in Lent and Advent, the King and Queen 
brought in three hundred poor people, and on their 
knees served them with the dishes from the royal 

[91] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

table. She visited the hospitals, and personally looked 
after the sick. In a word, there was nothing that she 
considered foreign to her, so long as it helped her 
neighbor. And the King came to be of the same mind. 

"He learned from her," says one writer, "often to 
watch the night in prayer. I could not sufficiently 
admire to see the fervor of this prince at prayer and 
to discover so much compunction of heart and such 
tears of devotion in a secular man." And another 
writer remarks : "She excited the King to the works 
of justice, mercy, alms-deeds and other virtues ; in all 
which by divine grace she brought him to be most 
ready to comply with her pious inclinations. For he, 
seeing that Christ dwelt in the heart of his queen, was 
always willing to follow her counsels.' , All her 
history is contained in those words — that Christ dwelt 
in her heart. 

She gave little time to sleep; she gave none to 
amusement: so that most of her time was spent in 
the service of God. In Lent and Advent she rose at 
midnight and went to church to Matins. After that 
she began the day by giving alms and tending the poor. 
She then slept for an hour or two, after which she 
rose again and heard four or five low Masses and 
then a High Mass. And every day, besides her other 
prayers, she recited several of the short offices. And 
this in a mother of eight children, and a queen besides ! 

At last a great sorrow came to her in the death 
of her husband while he was defending his country 
against the English. After his death his son Edward 

[92] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

carried on the siege, and he, too, was slain. Margaret 
at this time was lying on her death-bed, where she 
had been for six months, during which time she suf- 
fered excruciating pain. Her death happened four 
days after that of the King. 

When she heard of his death she exclaimed: "I 
thank Thee, Almighty God, that in sending me so 
great an affliction in the last hour of my life, Thou 
wouldst purify me from my sins, as I hope by Thy 
mercy/' She died in 1093, aged forty-seven years. 
At the time of the Reformation her remains, with 
those of her husband, were saved from plunder, and 
the principal parts carried into Spain. St. Margaret's 
head, which was brought to Mary Queen of Scots, was 
later given to the Scots Jesuits at Douai, where it 
disappeared at the time of the French Revolution. 

St. Margaret sanctified the kingdom by her prayers. 
A great queen, she considered her highest privilege 
that of serving God. This she did by sanctifying her- 
self and all those about her. She was a great wife, 
a great mother, a great queen, but above all a great 
saint. 

Another great queen-saint was St. Elizabeth, or 
Isabel, of Portugal so named after her great-aunt, St. 
Elizabeth of Hungary. She was born in 1271, daugh- 
ter of Pedro III of Aragon. She was brought up 
very piously, said the Divine Office every day, and 
led a life of penance — such a life, indeed, as seemed 
to destine her for the cloister. But God had other 
designs. She was very young when she married 

[93] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Diniz, King of Portugal, a very able and devoted king, 
a poet, but as immoral as his court. It was not a 
pleasant place for a virtuous young queen, but Isabel 
continued her life of devotion there, interested other 
ladies of the court in her charities, and even though 
she aroused ill-will on account of her piety, which 
was a reproach to an evil court, she finally succeeded 
in winning her husband back to a virtuous life, though 
that did not happen until near the end of his life 
and after many deeds of wickedness that must have 
well-nigh broken her heart. 

They had a son and daughter. The son, Alfonso, 
so resented the favor shown by his father to illegiti- 
mate sons, that he declared war against him. We can 
imagine the feelings of the wife and mother who 
loved them both. But she was a woman of action, 
and, mounting a horse, rode between the contending 
armies, and so made peace. On the death of the King, 
she entered a convent of the Poor Clares which she 
had founded and took the habit of the Third Order, 
anxious to give the rest of her days to penance, prayer, 
and charity. 

But she was not allowed to remain there in peace. 
Her son Alfonso, now king, made war against the 
King of Castile, who had married his daughter and 
was now ill-treating her. Isabel was now an old 
woman, but again she mounted her horse and rode 
between the contending armies. She made peace, but 
the exertion killed her. She contracted a fever and 
died in 1336, leaving behind her the memory of a 

[94] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

great sanctity. Isabel was queen, but her life was not 
a bed of roses. She knew the suffering that comes 
from the knowledge of a husband's infidelity. It was 
to her a crown of thorns, yet it helped to sanctify her 
soul in drawing her nearer to God. 

One of the unhappiest queens in the eyes of the 
world, yet happiest in the eyes of God, was Blessed 
Jeanne de Valois, popularly known as St. Jeanne de 
Valois. She was the daughter of Louis XI, King of 
France, by his second wife, Charlotte of Savoy, and 
was born in 1464. Her father hated her not only be- 
cause he had desired a son, but also because Jeanne 
was deformed and sickly. His hatred was so bitter 
that he would not keep her at court, but had her 
brought up by guardians in a lonely country chateau. 
There she was ill-used, being often without the necessi- 
ties of life ; but the hardships served to bring her closer 
to God. So great was her love for the Blessed Virgin 
that it is said she had a vision in which she was prom- 
ised that one day she would found a religious com- 
munity in her honor. But that was only after many 
and long trials. 

Her father, for political reasons, married her to 
Louis, Duke of Orleans, his second cousin, who was 
afterwards Louis XII of France. The husband in- 
sulted her, even publicly, at every opportunity. She 
loved him, however, and when he was in disgrace and 
in prison she came to his aid and had him freed. But 
he was ungrateful. When he became king he put 
her away and had the marriage annulled on the ground 

[95] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

that he had never consented to it and that it had never 
been consummated. She fought for her rights as 
long as possible, but when the case was decided against 
her she took it all in deep humility, and thanked God 
that it left her free to found the Order she had 
wished. She was made Duchess of Berry, and gov- 
erned that province ably. In 1500 she founded the 
Order of the Annonciades in honor of the Blessed 
Virgin. It was her consolation in sorrow, and to- 
wards the end of her life she took the vows, gave up 
her wedding ring, and wore the habit under her rich 
garments. Her health was always poor, but to her 
sufferings she added voluntary penance. She never 
ceased to love the husband who had repudiated her, 
and when she was dying begged her Order always to 
pray for him. So dear was she to her people that 
when she died in 1505 she was universally mourned. 
Many miracles were wrought through her interces- 
sion. It had been a life of trial, a way of the Cross, 
yet by that way she came to sanctity. Surely she is 
a patron for afflicted wives. 

The last of the queen-saints is one who lived almost 
in our own times — Blessed Marie Christine of Savoy. 
She was the daughter of Victor Emmanuel I, King of 
Sardinia, and of Maria Theresa of Austria, niece of 
Emperor Joseph II, and was born in 18 12. She was 
married to Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies, 
and died after the birth of her first son, at the age 
of twenty-three. It was a short, uneventful life; but 
even during her few years the young queen was noted 

[96] 



THE QUEEN SAINTS 

for her great piety, and so many graces were obtained 
through her intercession that as early as 1859 the 
process of her canonization was introduced, and in 
1872 her name was placed in the list of the blessed. 
It is a glorious list, that of these queens of earth 
who became queens in heaven. They might have had 
life easy, might have lived in power and luxury, yet 
they put aside all things in order to serve God. It 
is not easy for a queen to be a saint — it is not easy for 
anybody. It is only the way of the Cross that leads to 
sanctity. But the example of these noble women who 
overcame so many temptations towards a life of frivol- 
ity, a life of the world, is but another proof that 
sanctity is possible to all. And surely wives and 
mothers can go to these holy queens who were wives 
and mothers, too, knowing that they will understand 
their cares and show them the way to bear them. 



[97] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 
(1207-1231) 

THE dear St. Elizabeth!" What a charming 
name has been given to her, the young wife and 
mother! She was dear to those of her age, dear to 
those of every age, a wonderful saint that so im- 
pressed her personality on the world that she is still as 
vital to-day as she was more than seven hundred years 
ago when she spent her few years of existence in this 
world. But she is especially redolent of her age. She 
may be regarded as the personification of the wonder- 
ful thirteenth century, which, as Montalembert says, 
was perhaps "the most important, the most complete, 
and the most resplendent in the history of Catholic so- 
ciety." 

One of the greatest princes that reigned in Ger- 
many at the beginning of the thirteenth century was 
Hermann, Landgrave (or Duke) of Thuringia. He 
was the nephew of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, 
was the owner of vast estates in the centre of Ger- 
many, and had so much power that he virtually de- 
termined the choice of emperor, since it was his in- 
fluence that decided the seven electors of the Holy 
Roman Empire. Besides being so powerful as to take 

[98] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

and give crowns, he was noted for his generosity, 
learning and piety. He was an ardent lover of poetry 
and a good patron of the Minnesingers, who always 
found a welcome at his castle. 

In the year 1206, when he was at his castle at Wart- 
burg, there were assembled at that place six of the 
most renowned poets of Germany. They engaged in 
a contest of song, five of them nobles and one a poor 
burgess. So wonderful was the poetry sung on that 
occasion that the Duke could not choose the winner, 
and sent the simple burgess, Heinrich, to Transylvania 
to induce Klingsohr, renowned for his wisdom, to 
come to Eisenach and decide the contest. At the end 
of the year Heinrich returned with the great Klingsohr. 
When Klingsohr entered the garden of his host there 
was a great crowd to greet him. They asked him 
to tell them something new, and Klingsohr, after con- 
templating the stars for some time, said : "I will tell 
you something both new and joyous. I see a beautiful 
star rising in Hungary, the rays of which extend to 
Marburg, and from Marburg over all the world. 
Know even that on this night there is born to my lord, 
the King of Hungary, a daughter who shall be named 
Elizabeth. She shall be given in marriage to the son 
of your prince, she shall become a saint, and her 
sanctity shall rejoice and console all Christendom." 

At once the news of this was brought to the Duke 
at his castle, and immediately he rode with a great 
escort to visit Klingsohr, and to bring him to the castle, 
where he was treated with the highest honor. He 

[99] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

answered all the questions of the Duke in regard to 
the King of Hungary, presided at the new poetical 
contest, in which he upheld the poor Heinrich, and 
then returned to his home. 

The King of Hungary of whom he had spoken, 
the father of the dear St. Elizabeth, was Andrew II. 
He was a noble ruler, noted for his piety and charity, 
building churches and convents and giving alms to the 
poor. His wife was Gertrude of Merania, a member 
of one of the most illustrious houses of the empire in 
the thirteenth century, and a direct descendant of 
Charlemagne. Her brother had refused the imperial 
crown; one of her sisters was Hedwige, Duchess of 
Silesia and Poland, afterwards St. Hedwige; while 
another sister, Agnes, was wife of the King of France. 
Gertrude was as pious as her husband and withal a 
courageous woman; and she and her husband loved 
each other devotedly. 

Into this royal house was born, in 1207, Elizabeth. 
As the royal babe was carried under a canopy of the 
richest stuffs to be baptized, no one guessed that she 
was to give to her native land undying fame. 

It is said that even in her cradle the little Elizabeth 
gave signs of her future greatness and holiness. The 
first words uttered by her were the sacred names. 
Even at the age of three she expressed her compassion 
for the poor, and sought to alleviate their misery by 
gifts. How well her biographer expresses the history 
of those baby days: "Her first act was an almsdeed, 
her first word a prayer." 

[100] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

It is related that immediately after her birth the 
wars in which Hungary was engaged ceased. Peace 
and prosperity reigned throughout the kingdom. The 
people used to say that Elizabeth had brought these 
blessings with her. 

Meanwhile the Duke of Thuringia, as soon as he 
had verified the predictions of Klingsohr as to the 
birth of the child, and had learned of the peace and 
happiness that had come with her, eagerly desired the 
fulfilment of the rest of the prophecy — that his son 
should be espoused to her. Travelers who came from 
Hungary always had something wonderful to relate 
about her. Once there came to the court a monk who 
declared that he had been blind from the age of four 
years and was cured by the touch of the little princess. 
"All Hungary," said he, "rejoices in this child, for 
she has brought peace with her." 

And so the Duke sent an embassy of lords and ladies 
to the King of Hungary to ask, in the name of his 
young son Louis, the hand of Elizabeth, and, if pos- 
sible to bring her back with them. It was a lordly 
embassy of at least thirty horses in the train, received 
with the greatest respect by all the princes and prel- 
ates through whose estates they passed. When they 
announced to the King of Hungary the purpose of 
their coming, he assembled his council to decide the 
matter. Klingsohr made an address, in which he told 
how desirable the match would be, both on account 
of Hermann's wealth and power and his fine personal 
character. The King was impressed, and yielded to 

[ioi] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

the influence of his wife Gertrude, who was in favor 
of the marriage. They both agreed to give up their 
child to be trained by Hermann as the future wife of 
his son Louis. A great feast lasting three days, with 
games, dances, music, and poetry, was then given in 
honor of the little Elizabeth, after which the am- 
bassadors took leave, bringing with them the little girl, 
four years of age, whom the attendants laid in a 
cradle of massive silver and covered with a silken 
robe embroidered with gold. 

The King and Queen wept at losing their dear child ; 
but it was the custom of the times, and they felt that 
they were making the sacrifice for the benefit of Eliza- 
beth herself. It was a glorious dowry they sent with 
her, presents such as never before had been seen 
in Thuringia. With the little girl went thirteen noble 
Hungarian maidens as companions, all of whom Duke 
Hermann dowered and married in Thuringia. Eliza- 
beth was received with great outbursts of joy. The 
Duke pressed her to his heart, and thanked God, who 
had sent her. The Princess was then solemnly af- 
fianced to the Duke Louis, then aged eleven, and the 
castle resounded with jubilation. 

The profound piety which Elizabeth seems to have 
inherited from her good parents became intensified 
when to her, a little maiden in a foreign land, the 
news was brought that her mother Gertrude had been 
assassinated by her husband's subjects, whether from 
revenge at a crime of her brother or through acci- 
dent from the plot against the life of her husband is 

[102] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

not now certain. But it must have been a heavy blow 
to the precocious, serious little Elizabeth. 

On her arrival in Thuringia, the Duke had selected 
seven maidens of the noblest houses to be her com- 
panions, amongst them his own daughter, Agnes. One 
of these companions was Guta, five years old, who re- 
mained with Elizabeth, her constant companion up 
to a short time before Elizabeth's death. From her 
we get the details about the girlhood of Elizabeth. All 
the child's thoughts seemed centred in God. Even 
before she knew how to read she would take a large 
Psalter, go to the chapel, open the book and kneel 
and give up her soul to prayer and meditation. In 
the games she would lead the other little girls to the 
chapel. If it were shut she would kiss the door as a 
mark of love to her dear Lord. Even in her games 
she thought of God. Fancy her leading her play- 
mates to the cemetery and saying to them, "Remem- 
ber that one day we shall be nothing but dust!" And 
then she would make them kneel and pray with her. 
Every moment she had was given to prayer. And 
even in those days of childhood, when most little girls 
think of dolls, she was beginning the life of charity 
for which later on she was to be so noted. All the 
money she could get she gave to the poor, and she 
would even go into the kitchen of the castle to gather 
the remains of victuals to carry to the needy. A pre- 
cocious child? Rather a child to whom had come in 
the infant days the wisdom of God. 

When she was nine years old, in the year 12 1 6, 
[103] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

the Duke Hermann died, and his eldest son, Louis, 
then sixteen, succeeded him. The death of the Duke 
was a blow to Elizabeth, for he had loved her as his 
own child, especially so on account of her great piety. 
Louis was still too young to rule, and his mother gov- 
erned in his stead. She cared little for Elizabeth. 
The great piety of the child provoked her, as it did also 
Agnes and the other companions, who felt that Eliza- 
beth's devotion was a reproach to them. Agnes used 
to tell Elizabeth that she was fit only to be a servant. 
To none of them did she appear as a real princess. 
And so even in those young days she had to suffer 
insult. 

Elizabeth cared little for society. She was happiest 
when among the poor children, giving alms to them. 
It bothered her little that the others made fun of her. 
A story is told that once, when she went with the 
Duchess and the Princess Agnes to church on the Feast 
of the Assumption, Elizabeth, as soon as she saw the 
crucifix, took off her crown and laid it on a bench, 
and then prostrated herself. The Duchess reproached 
her for lack of dignity in "behaving like an ill-reared 
child." But Elizabeth replied, "My coronet would be 
a mockery of His thorny wreath" ; and then she wept 
at the sufferings of Our Lord. 

Already Elizabeth was being made to bear the 
Cross. When the time of her marriage approached 
all the relatives of Louis and all the councilors tried 
to prevent the union, saying that she ought to be sent 
back to her father, that she had too much of the 

[104] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

peasant in her manners, and was not worthy to be the 
wife of the great Duke of Thuringia. The Duchess 
even tried to prevail upon her to enter a convent, and 
Agnes continued to insult her; but the persecution 
brought her nearer to God and she trusted in Him. 
She would do His will, whatever it was. 

The only real friend she had at court was Louis 
himself. He rejoiced in what others condemned in 
his future wife, and his love for her increased day 
by day. In her moments of sadness he came to con- 
sole her, and every time he returned from a journey he 
would bring her a gift. When one of the courtiers 
asked him if he intended to marry her, he exclaimed : 
"I love her, and love nothing better in this world. I 
will have my Elizabeth; she is dearer to me for her 
virtue and piety than all the kingdoms and riches of 
the earth." 

So in 1 220 the marriage was celebrated with great 
pomp at the castle of Wartburg. The tongues of 
the slanderers were silenced ; Elizabeth was exonerated 
before the world. Louis was twenty, she was thir- 
teen; two young hearts united in love, united in faith 
and virtue. The old biographers tell us that they loved 
with an inconceivable love. It was one of the happiest 
marriages in the history of the world, a romance of 
holiness. 

The young Duke Louis was a man of whom any 
woman would be proud. He was celebrated for his 
beauty, having a perfect figure, fresh complexion, long 
fair hair, and a gentle expression, with a smile that 

[105] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

was irresistible. No one could see him without loving 
him. And withal he was modest and bashful as a girl, 
so great was his unaffected purity, a great tribute to 
a youth who at the age of sixteen had become master 
of one of the richest principalities of Germany, and 
who was surrounded by insidious flatterers who would 
have been delighted to see him overcome, and who 
in fact did seek to entrap him in sins of lust. 

Every morning he assisted at Mass. Religion was 
to him a practical matter, and the Church and the 
monasteries found in him an able defender. He en- 
joyed the society of religious men, and often came 
to the Benedictine Abbey where he had chosen his 
burial-place. On arriving there, his first visit was to 
the sick and poor, whom he would console, bestowing 
upon them alms, and sometimes leaving with them 
part of his rich costume. And in the midst of all his 
wealth he practised mortification, a true knight with- 
out fear and without stain. Yet he was no weakling. 
He was noted for his courage and for his physical 
strength and agility; a big man, big in strength and 
big in virtue. No wonder the young wife loved him 
dearly. It was a happy home, full of gaiety and good 
cheer, a truly royal house. And above all was the 
Duke's sense of justice. He banished from the court 
all who were haughty to the poor, all who did violence 
to others, and all bearers of slander. If a subject 
blasphemed or used an impure word, he was made to 
wear publicly for a certain time a mark of ignominy. 
He worked for the good of his people. Once he made 

I106] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

war against Franconia in order to exact retribution 
for an injustice committed against a poor peddler. It 
was a happy reign, all too short, and all was due to 
the splendid, manly virtue of Duke Louis and the 
prayers of his noble lady, the dear St. Elizabeth. 

And dearer than his kingdom to Louis was the 
possession of Elizabeth. What a handsome couple 
they must have been ! She is represented as a perfect 
beauty, with a complexion clear brown, black hair, 
elegant figure, and wonderful eyes of tenderness. And 
more beautiful than all else was her lovely soul. Her 
love for Louis was almost childlike. She looked to 
him as her head, as a wonderful being whom she 
should respect as well as love. Her consideration was 
ever for him, and she answered his least sign or word. 
He was her king, and she his loving slave. She loved 
him all the more because she loved God so much. 
Piety was no obstacle to their affection; rather did it 
encourage her in her devotions and her works of 
charity. Together they advanced in virtue, just as 
they had grown together in life as "Brother" and 
"Sister," the loving names they called each other even 
after their marriage. 

Louis and Elizabeth were inseparable. They could 
not endure being absent from each other. On his 
hunting excursions she went with him, even though it 
were over rugged roads and through storms. But 
when he went on long journeys and she had to re- 
main at home she would lay aside her royal robes 
and dress as a widow and spend the time of his absence 

[107] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

in prayer and mortification. But as soon as word 
came that he was returning, she would array herself 
in all her magnificence and go forth in simple, childlike 
joy to meet him. She sought to please him alone. 

The only fear of the young wife was that she was 
too happy. Hence she sought to mortify herself. 
Sometimes, when her husband was away, she would 
spend the whole night in prayer. Under her royal 
robes she always wore the hair shirt. Every Friday, 
in memory of the Passion, and every day during 
Lent she had herself scourged, after which, joyful and 
serene, she would return to court. They were heavy 
penances that she endured, yet she was never gloomy. 
She was as merry as anybody at court and would take 
her part in the dance and play. She was a joyful saint, 
indeed. She used to say of those who prayed with 
long faces : "They seem as if they wished to frighten 
our good God ; can they not say to Him all they please 
with cheerful hearts?" Yet she chastised her body, 
mortified her appetite by fasting, even at the royal 
table, without drawing attention to herself, and with- 
out making those who ate with her uncomfortable. 
Some days her only food was a bit of black bread. 
And all this from a girl who was only fifteen! 

No wonder that Elizabeth was reproved by the 
whole court for these "extravagances," which were 
a reproach to the lives of those who were less spiritual. 
But she cared not so long as she pleased her God and 
her husband. 

One day, when she entered the church, a crown on 
[108] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

her head, and dressed in regal splendor, her gown 
covered with precious stones, she glanced at the Cruci- 
fix, and seeing her Saviour naked and crowned with 
thorns, she fell fainting to the ground. From that 
moment she resolved to renounce all pomp of dress, 
save when the duties of her rank or the will of her 
husband required it. But even when she dressed in 
robes of state she would wear under them her simple 
robes and her hair shirt. She was a reformer in dress, 
and induced others of the noble ladies at court to 
imitate her simplicity, even making patterns of dresses 
for them. 

Strict with herself, she was generous to the poor, 
so much so that she merited to be known as the 
"Patroness of the Poor." We have seen that even 
as a little girl she loved to help the poor; and now, 
with her husband encouraging her in this holy work, 
it became one of the dominating thoughts of her life. 
Rich as she was, it often happened that she would 
despoil herself of her clothes rather than see any poor 
person unaided, so great was her generosity to the 
poor. 

But she gave them more than money and food and 
clothes : she gave them love, her personal care, visited 
them in their homes, tended their sick-beds, and al- 
ways with that matter-of-fact simplicity that put them 
at their ease. Poor women about to become mothers 
were her special care. She would take the new-born 
babe and dress it with garments she herself had made, 
and many a time would hold it at its baptism. When 

[109] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

one of her poor died she would come and watch the 
body, and cover it with her own hands, often with 
sheets from her own bed, and many a time she would 
take part in the funeral procession as the humblest 
mourner. 

And with all that charity to others, she was not idle 
at home. She spun wool with her maids, and made 
it into garments for the poor. She was, in fact, 
always solicitous for the poor, and when she dis- 
covered that any one of them had been treated un- 
justly she would denounce the injustice to her husband 
and seek redress for him. 

There is a beautiful legend that one day, as she 
left the castle carrying under her mantle food for 
some of her poor people, she was suddenly met by her 
husband as he was returning from the hunt. Aston- 
ished at seeing her carrying a burden, he said, "Let us 
see what you carry," and at the same time lifted her 
mantle. But beneath it he saw only red and white 
roses, the most beautiful he had ever seen, and this, 
too, when it was not the season of flowers. Seeing 
that she was troubled, he sought to caress her, and 
then he beheld over her head a luminous crucifix. He 
told her to continue on her way, and he went on to the 
castle, carrying one of the roses, which he always 
preserved. At the spot where this meeting took place 
he had a pillar erected surmounted by a cross to 
consecrate the place of the vision. 

The more repulsive the sickness, the more eager was 
Elizabeth to tend the sufferer. Lepers especially 

[no] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

touched her heart. While others drew away from 
them, she drew near. On Holy Thursday she would 
gather a great number of lepers, wash their hands 
and feet, and kiss their sores. There was one poor 
little leper whose condition was so deplorable that no 
one would come near him. Elizabeth, however, tended 
him and then laid him in her own bed. The Duke's 
mother, who was still unfriendly to her, came to her 
son and told him what had happened, leading him to 
the room where the leper lay. The Duke was irritated 
that a leper had been put in his bed, but as he raised 
the covering he saw in the place of the leper the 
figure of Jesus Christ crucified, and he burst into 
tears. Shortly after that Elizabeth got his permission 
to build an almshouse, and there she kept twenty- 
eight sick and poor, whom she daily visited, feeding 
and tending them. She loved the poor and she loved 
poverty. "O my God," exclaimed St. Francis de 
Sales, "how poor was the Princess in her riches and 
how rich in her poverty!" Sometimes she would re- 
move her royal robes and put on a mantle like those 
worn by the poor, and, walking before her compan- 
ions, would feign to beg her bread. "Thus will I 
walk," she said, "when I shall be poor and in misery 
for the love of my God." She little knew that the 
day would come when these words would prove true. 
She loved the poor, but she loved God more. Her 
greatest happiness was to be in church. She received 
Holy Communion frequently. Holy Thursday night 
she would remain in the church. "All her glory," said 

Fin] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

one of her contemporaries, "was in the cross and pas- 
sion of Christ; the world was crucified to her and she 
to the world." She wept over her simple faults, see- 
ing how they withdrew her from God, but often as 
she was in tears, the beauty of her countenance was 
never harmed. 

The spirit of St. Francis of Assisi was then in the 
air. His abandonment of the world took place the 
year Elizabeth was born. He had established his 
Third Order for those whose duties kept them in the 
world, an Order that required special sacrifices from 
those who joined it. The Order spread rapidly every- 
where. No one encouraged it more than Elizabeth. 
She founded a convent of Franciscans in the capital 
city, and was the first person in Germany to be asso- 
ciated with the Third Order. Francis, at the request 
of the Cardinal Protector of the Order, afterwards 
Gregory IX, who canonized her, sent her his poor old 
mantle, which she cherished until her death. And 
all the while, under the direction of Conrad, a learned 
and holy priest, she was making remarkable progress 
in sanctity. 

In 1223, at the age of sixteen, Elizabeth gave birth 
to her first child, a son who was called Hermann. A 
year later she gave birth to a daughter, Sophia. She 
had two other daughters, one also called Sophia — 
though her existence is denied by some biographers — 
and Gertrude, who later on took the veil. After each 
of her confinements, as soon as she was able, she 
went secretly from the castle, barefoot, clothed in 

[112] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

plain woolen robes, to the Church of St. Catherine 
outside the city, and laid the infant on the altar, offer- 
ing it to Christ and His Blessed Mother. 

When the Duke joined the Emperor in the war 
against the Bolognese a frightful famine overspread 
all Germany, and especially Thuringia. The poor 
were reduced to the extremity of eating roots and 
stuff such as only animals eat. They even ate dead 
horses and unclean beasts. Many died, so that the 
roads were covered with dead bodies. It may be 
easily imagined that the Duchess Elizabeth had no 
other thought than the alleviation of this distress. She 
spared nothing. She emptied the ducal treasury, sold 
its lands, opened the granaries of her husband, and 
gave all the grain to the poor. She had bread baked 
at the castle and with her own hands served the 
needy. She gave the poor her personal attention, and 
even built two almshouses in the city, visiting them 
morning and night, and going from bed to bed to con- 
sole the afflicted, making their beds, washing their faces, 
and all with a kindness and gaiety that made them re- 
gard her as an angel from God. In one of the hos- 
pitals she established an orphanage, and there she 
found her delight sitting in the midst of the little ones, 
who called her "Mamma." She was everywhere, in 
the hospitals, in the huts of the poor, in the prisons, 
wherever there was suffering to be alleviated. She 
even sold her jewels and other precious articles in 
order to get money to carry on her charities. 

When the Duke returned from the wars the officers 
[113] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of his household went out to meet him, and told him 
of what they considered the reckless extravagance of 
the Duchess in giving his possessions to the poor. "Is 
my dear wife well? , ' he asked. "That is all I care 
to know ; the rest matters not. I wish that you would 
allow my good little Elizabeth to give as much alms 
as she pleases, and that you would rather assist than 
contradict her. We shall never be impoverished by 
almsdeeds." 

The joy of Elizabeth at the return of the Duke was 
boundless; she kissed him a thousand times, happy to 
be reunited with him. But the joy of the reunion did 
not last long. They were soon again separated, and 
this time forever. The occasion of the separation 
was the new Crusade to rescue the tomb of Christ, 
a desire that animated the whole thirteenth century. 
To none did it appeal more than to Louis when he 
was summoned by Emperor Frederick II in 1227, 
and at once he was eager to go, as his ancestors had 
gone. When Elizabeth heard of it — she was then 
pregnant with her fourth child — she swooned at the 
thought of losing her dear husband and at the thought 
of her unborn child. But when he told her of the vow 
he had made she overcame her grief, and bade him go 
in the name of God. But it wrenched her heart. With 
sobs they parted, and as he went she put on widow's 
mourning which never again would she lay aside. For 
scarcely had Louis set sail than he was stricken with 
fever and died at Otranto, a man in the vigor of youth 

[114] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

— he was only twenty-seven — one of the noblest men 
that ever lived. 

When the news reached home Elizabeth had just 
given birth to her daughter Gertrude. It was the 
Duke's mother that broke to her the bad news. The 
young wife cried out in her grief, "O Lord my God, 
my God, now indeed is the whole world dead to me; 
the world and all it contains of happiness!" Then 
she rose from her bed and ran distractedly through 
the castle, crying out, "He is dead ! He is dead !" The 
young widow of twenty was heart-broken, for after 
God she worshipped her husband. So ended one of 
the happiest marriages history records, a union not 
only of love, but sanctified by piety of heroic degree 
on the part of both husband and wife. 

But God, who had sent her the years of happiness, 
now sent her the years of pain. Scarcely had the nine 
days' wonder of the Duke's death on foreign shores 
passed away than there was plotting against his 
widow. The Duke's brothers, Henry and Conrad, tak- 
ing advantage of the powerlessness of Elizabeth and 
her children, assumed control of the government and 
ordered them to leave the castle. She pleaded with 
them for delay, but they were inexorable. Their 
mother also pleaded with them, for she pitied deeply 
the misery of her daughter-in-law and her grand- 
children. But they would not relent in their course of 
injustice. Out of the castle they turned her, penni- 
less, and the gates were closed on her and her helpless 
little ones. On foot, carrying her infant and with 

[115] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

her other children following, accompanied by her two 
faithful companions, she descended the rugged road, 
not knowing where she was to find shelter. She came 
into the city of Eisenach, where so often she had be- 
friended the poor, but no one would give her a help- 
ing hand. The Duke Henry had issued a proclama- 
tion that whosoever received the Duchess Elizabeth 
and her children would incur his displeasure. Door 
after door they came to, only to be turned away, until 
finally they found a lodging in the miserable outhouse 
of a tavern, where the owner kept his swine. 

Elizabeth, however, for her own sake rejoiced in 
the humiliation, happy to suffer for the love of God; 
and, going to the Franciscan convent to assist at the 
office, she begged the monks to sing a Te Deum in 
thanks to God for the trials He had sent her. She 
remained in the church that night and part of the next 
day, until the cold and hunger drove her forth to beg 
for her children. A poor priest took her and her chil- 
dren in and gave them shelter and food. But as her 
misery soon increased, she found it necessary to give 
up her children to the care of friends, and they were 
taken away and concealed in different places. Now 
that they were provided for, she cared not for her own 
destitution, and tried to earn her living by spinning. 
Yet even in those days of poverty she divided what 
she earned with the poor. Some later biographers 
have questioned this story of her persecutions, and 
say that she left the castle voluntarily in order the 
better to serve God. But whatever the case, she en- 

[n<5] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

dnred great trials, and they served only to bring her 
nearer to God. She suffered for Him, and, as a re- 
ward for those trials, it is related that she had many 
ecstasies and visions to console her. 

Word was soon brought to her aunt, Matilda, 
abbess of Kitzingen, the sister of her mother, of the 
deplorable condition of the young widow. Imme- 
diately she sent carriages for her and her children to 
bring them to the abbey. Elizabeth, glad to be with 
her children once more, accepted the invitation, and 
there in the monastery found peace for her soul. She 
even expressed the desire, if she were free from the 
care of her children, to become a nun. 

Meanwhile her uncle, the Bishop of Bamberg, 
desired her to marry again, and invited her to his 
dominions, assigning to her the castle of Botenstein 
as her residence, where she lived with her children 
and servants. It is said that he wished her to wed 
the Emperor Frederick, who had lost his wife. But 
she would not listen to the proposal. "Sire," said 
she, "I had for my lord a husband who most tenderly 
loved me, and who was always my loyal friend. I 
shared in his honor and his power; I had much of 
the riches, jewels, and pleasures of the world; I had 
all these, but I always thought, what you, my lord, 
know full well, that the joys of this earth are worth- 
less." During her husband's life, even, she had made 
a vow never to marry again if he died. 

When the Crusade was ended the body of the Duke 
was brought home by his companions to be buried in 

[117] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

his own country. Elizabeth was summoned to take 
part in the final service. Her grief was heart-rending. 
She threw herself upon the coffin and wept out her love 
and her misery. "You know, O my God," she ex- 
claimed, "how I loved this husband who loved you so 
much; you know that I would prefer him to all the 
delights of the world, if your goodness permitted it. 
You know that with him I would be willing to spend 
my life in misery, and beg my bread from door to 
door, throughout the whole world, solely to have the 
happiness of being by his side, if you willed it, O my 
God. Now I resign myself and him to your divine 
pleasure, and I would not, even if I could, purchase him 
back again at the price of a single hair of my head, 
unless it were agreeable to you, my good God!" 

The procession then set out for Thuringia, and the 
noble Louis was laid to rest in the place he himself 
had chosen. As soon as this was done, the knights 
who had been his friends, having heard of the woes 
endured by Elizabeth and her children, demanded re- 
dress and obtained it. The usurping brothers ex- 
pressed their repentance, and Elizabeth and her chil- 
dren were restored to their rights. Elizabeth resumed 
her place in the castle, and was given all the honors 
due her rank, as also the privilege to continue her 
works of piety and charity. She founded the hospital 
of St. Mary Magdalen, and again devoted herself to 
the sick and poor. But the courtiers did not relish 
such heroic virtue. They again called her a mad 
woman and a*fool, and some of them refused to speak 

[ri8] 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

to her. Finally she prevailed upon her brother-in-law, 
the Duke Henry, who was regent for her oldest son, 
to set aside a residence where she might dwell by 
herself. 

Elizabeth was granted the city of Marburg with all 
its revenues. She had constructed near the convent 
of the Friars Minor a small house, like a poor cabin, 
and there she dwelt with her children and her faith- 
ful servants. She yearned for poverty, and even sought 
permission from her confessor to embrace the Fran- 
ciscan rule in all its severity and beg her bread like 
the Poor Clares. But he refused to allow her to do 
this, thinking that for one in her position and with 
her responsibilities it was better to continue as a 
member of the Third Order. But in her heart she 
renounced all wealth, sought to draw herself away 
from the world, even trying to curb the excessive love 
she bore her children. And so on Good Friday, in 
the presence of her children and friends, she laid her 
hands on the altar-stone and vowed to renounce her 
will, her children, her relations, her companions, and 
all the pomps and pleasures of the world. Her hair 
was cut off, and she was clothed with the gray robe 
and girded with the cord. Ever after she went bare- 
footed. She separated from her children, though it 
must have broken her heart to do so, Hermann and 
Sophia being sent to the castle of Creutzburg, and the 
other two girls placed in convents. She had made 
the supreme sacrifice for the Cross of Christ. She 
was criticized for this, called heartless, a fool, but she 

[119] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

did not heed the insults. God had called her, and she 
had answered the call; that was all. 

It was a life of poverty. The revenues from her 
property she gave to the poor, and then supported her- 
self by her own work, living in a poor cottage and 
spinning wool. What a life for a duchess, slaving day 
by day, dividing her food, poor as it was, with the 
needy, wearing clothes that even the poor would have 
despised! No wonder her former friends regarded 
her as insane. But, like all saints, amid her trials she 
never lost the sweetness of her disposition. 

When her father, the King of Hungary, heard of 
her poverty, he was displeased, and sent an ambassador 
to find out the reason. Her brother-in-law, the Duke, 
said to the ambassador : "My sister has become quite 
mad; every one knows it; you will see it yourself." 
And then he told of Elizabeth's voluntary poverty, and 
her predilection for the poor and the lepers. The 
ambassador wept when he saw her poverty, and asked : 
"When did any one ever see a king's daughter spinning 
wool?" He begged her to return to her father, but 
she refused, saying that she was happiest in her 
poverty, serving the King of kings. 

So she served her King in lowliness and charity, 
till at last He called her home. She was but twenty- 
four when she died, just beginning life, one would 
say, but how much she had crowded into those few 
years! One day she was stricken with a fever. For 
twelve or fourteen days she suffered under it, always 
joyous, however, and always praying. She knew that 

[ 120 ] 

L. -4 



ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY 

she was going to die and her heart was glad. She 
wished to see none of her friends; the time was all 
too short to give herself wholly to the preparation for 
death. Humbly she made her confession, received the 
last sacraments, and then during the night of Novem- 
ber 19, 1 23 1, passed to her God. 

When the news of her death was made known there 
was universal sorrow. It was known then what a loss 
the world had suffered in her who in her life had been 
despised and calumniated as a fool because she had 
chosen to be a humble follower of the Lord rather 
than a proud duchess. On the night before her 
obsequies in the Franciscan church in which she was 
buried, it was said that on the roof of the church an 
immense number of birds congregated to sing such 
music as never had been heard before. "These little 
birds,'' said St. Bonaventure, "rendered testimony to 
her purity by speaking of her in their language at her 
burial, and singing with such wondrous sweetness over 
her tomb." 

As Elizabeth had herself worked miracles during 
her life, so when she was dead great wonders were 
wrought through her intercession. Scarcely was she 
buried when there was a movement toward her canon- 
ization, which took place at Pentecost, May 26, 1235. 
And thus, within five years after her death, Elizabeth 
was raised to the altars of God amid the universal 
acclaim of the people who through all the generations 
since have loved her. 

What an example she was ! A woman, daughter of 
[121] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

a king, a duchess, with all that the world holds dear, 
a woman who loved her husband and children, a 
woman blessed with wonderful affection, yet eager to 
sacrifice all for the service of God. To us who com- 
plain of hardship, who set our hearts on worldly 
treasures, what an example she is of the truth, that, 
after all, the only thing that really counts is to love 
God. The dear St. Elizabeth! 



[122] 



ST. RITA 

[(1381-1457X 

IT is related in the life of St. Jane Frances de Chan- 
tal that when, after the death of her husband and 
after having provided for the education and main- 
tenance of her four children, she decided to leave the 
world and retire to Annecy, where she was to found 
the Congregation of the Visitation, her son, then an 
impulsive lad of twelve years, so dreaded the thought 
of being separated from her that in the attempt to 
shake her resolution he threw himself across the 
threshold and broke into sobs, pleading with her not 
to go. It was a sight to move the mother herself to 
tears, and to tempt her to accede to her natural 
mother-craving. "Can the tears of a child shake your 
resolution ?" said a holy priest who witnessed this out- 
burst of feeling. "Oh, no," answered the mother; 
"but, after all, I am a mother/' And then she stepped 
over the lad, an action indicating that she would not 
permit even her motherly affection for her children 
to stand in the way of her serving God. 

When I think of St. Jane, somehow I do not recall 
her as the admirable mistress of novices, as the 
foundress of convents, as the spiritual adviser to 

[123] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

queens and princes and princesses; I rather picture 
that incident of her stepping over the body of her son, 
that son who later on was to give her so much pain. 
A trivial incident it may seem out of the life of one 
who did so many glorious things for the Church of 
God. But is it trivial, after all? Does it not picture 
the real woman, torn between love for her beloved lad 
and the love of God? It was the moment of her de- 
cision. God should count even more than the son God 
had given her. 

In the same manner, when I think of St. Rita, there 
is associated with her very name an incident in her 
life that, compared with the many events in her later 
life as a religious and as a saint to whom God showed 
wondrous signs of His good pleasure in her, might 
be regarded but as passing. It is the incident in her 
life when, in her wondrous outburst of mother-love, 
a love that saw beyond the preferments of this life 
and regarded the few years of sojourn in this world 
as insignificant beside the vast stretch of eternity, she 
— a mother, mind you — prayed for the death of her 
twin sons, — a prayer, too, which God in His goodness 
granted to the heart-broken but joyful mother. When 
I have told you the story of St. Rita's life, perhaps you 
will recall her in the same manner, not as the glorious 
saint, not as the ecstatic nun, but as the poor mother 
torn between earthly affection for her boys and the 
fear that these lads, the pride of her life, would lose 
their immortal souls. What matter about her own 
grief, what matter if she were left alone in the world, 

[124] 



ST. RITA 

so long as she might see them laid away in their graves 
before they had soiled their hands with the blood of 
a brother man. Again, like St. Jane, she would step 
over the bodies of the children of her own flesh and 
blood in order to serve God and avert any crime 
against His glory. St. Rita became a great saint, the 
saint whom the Spaniards lovingly call the "Saint of 
the Impossible" to show the confidence they have in 
her powers of intercession. She was also a great 
mother. It was perhaps because she was a great 
mother that she became a great saint. God gave her 
newer and greater graces because she co-operated so 
well with that grace that moved her to put Him above 
her children. All through the life of St. Rita runs 
the thread of the service of God. It is a thread upon 
which is strung the great jewel of her mother-love, 
surely not the least precious jewel in a life which was 
a veritable casket of pearls of great price. 

Rita's maiden name was Mancini. There was very 
little about her father, Antonio Mancini, to have his 
name handed down to posterity. A poor farmer, he 
would have been the last one to take any glory to him- 
self or to think or to fancy that his name should be 
kept in remembrance a day after he was dead. He 
was just a humble servant of God, doing his hard 
work and striving for the salvation of his soul. And 
yet his name is in lasting remembrance, for no child 
comes to glory without reflecting a light upon the 
parents to whose influence, when all is said, so much 
of that glory is to be attributed. Antonio Mancini 

[125] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

was a good and just man. He was blessed, too, in 
having a good wife. Her name was Amata Ferri, and 
he had brought her from the little village of Fogliano 
to the other little village of Rocca Porena, situated a 
few miles from Cascia, then a thriving city of Umbria, 
at a distance of seventy-five miles from the great 
centre of Rome. A devoted couple they were, finding 
the secret of the contentment of life in the work that 
goes hand in hand with religion. One would not call 
them poor; they were just in comfortable circum- 
stances, getting a good living out of their farm. 

They had not an abundance of this world's goods, 
but they had enough to be able to practise charity; 
perhaps because they did not have an abundance they 
were all the more charitable, for it is from the poor, 
somehow, that most of the charity in the world comes. 
Anyway, they were noted among the people of the 
village for their kindness to the needy, one reason 
being that they did not have a large family of children 
like those with which their neighbors were blessed. 
Reading the life of St. Rita, we have no difficulty in 
picturing the Mancinis as the leading family in that 
town of small farmers. It was the custom in the vil- 
lage for the people themselves to be their own judge 
and jury. It was very likely a relic of the old free- 
town government. There was with the farmers of 
Rocca Porena no silly business of going to law. Every 
year a man and his wife were appointed to be referees 
for a period of twelve months. All the disputes that 
arose in the community were brought to them for 

[126] 



ST. RITA 

settlement. It did away with a lot of legal red tape 
and was withal a cheaper way to get justice. Many a 
year were the Mancinis given this task of settling the 
family squabbles. And even when they were not the 
appointed " judges," they were always ready to pour 
oil on the troubled waters, so much so that they were 
affectionately called the "peacemakers of Jesus Christ." 
I fancy the wife was very much of a philosopher. 
"Take care," she used to say to the women of the town 
whenever there was any misunderstanding, "that your 
long tongue has not caused the trouble between you 
and your husband." All in all, it is a picture of pas- 
toral simplicity — that simplicity which gets its true 
wisdom from the spirit of faith. 

There was, however, one great sorrow to the peace- 
makers : they had no children. As the years went by 
and they passed into old age, there finally came the 
time when they ceased to hope for a child. But one 
day Amata, old as she was, realized that she was 
about to become a mother. It is easy to picture the 
amazement of the good old soul when she knew that 
the prayers of her young wifehood were to be 
answered long after she had despaired of such a 
blessing. The story is told, and it is not too difficult 
to believe in the life of one so closely united to God, 
that an angel appeared to her and assured her that 
this was a special favor from the Almighty. It is 
like a page from the life of the old mother of St. John 
the Baptist. When one is dealing with the lives of 
those who are great in the kingdom of God, one should 

[127] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

not be surprised at extraordinary signs of God's ap- 
proval. 

The child of such especial favor was born on the 
twenty-second of May, in the month of Our Lady, 
1 38 1. One need not be told that the event gave rise 
to much gossip among the neighbors. It was good- 
natured gossip, more an expression of amazement than 
anything else, for not one but rejoiced in the fortune 
of Amata Mancini, who was loved by everybody. No 
wonder that these simple-hearted farmers and wives 
of farmers could see in the event nothing but a 
wondrous miracle. It was to them almost as much. a 
matter of pride as to the Mancinis themselves that 
their little village, hidden away under the Apennines, 
was made the scene of such a prodigy; for all were 
made acquainted with the vision of the angel. 

That was the first of the prodigies related of the 
birth of the infant. Another was to follow in that 
always interesting family event, the choice of a name 
for the new baby. What should she be called? Should 
it be Amata, or should it be some treasured family 
name, his mother's, or Amata's, perhaps? Again the 
angel decided, and, appearing to Amata once more, 
told her that the new baby should be called Rita- — a 
strange name, a new name, a name the meaning of 
which they did not understand. But it was not theirs 
to question. Rita it should be, a name the music of 
which has been sounding on earth ever since it was 
given to the humble child of humble parents who 
served God five hundred years ago. 

[128] 



ST. RITA 

We need not, if we do not wish to do so, accept 
all the stories of wonderful happenings about the cradle 
of little Rita. There were enough of real miracles in 
her life subsequently, enough of graces and miracles 
granted through her intercession, and still granted 
to those who do honor to her, things that can be proved 
historically, to understand how she was marked by 
God, without troubling to prove whether this or that 
story is an actual happening or merely a poetic legend. 
There is one story, however, that is told by all her 
biographers to the effect that when she was five days 
old a swarm of white bees, the like of which had never 
before been seen, appeared mysteriously, and, buzzing 
about the face of the child, went in and out of her 
little mouth. The white bees have ever been connected 
with the life of St. Rita; St. Rita's bees they are 
called, and have served many an artist who has pic- 
tured some incident in her life. It is said that even to- 
day in Cascia, in the convent wall, midway between the 
place of the cell she occupied as a nun and her last 
resting place, the white bees still have their nest, still 
St. Rita's bees for these five centuries. It is a legend 
worthy of St. Francis of Assisi. 

Like father, like son. The Mancinis were such a 
pious couple, it was to be expected that their child, 
especially a child that had been the object of such 
divine favor, would also give signs of extraordinary 
piety. One thing in Rita's favor was that there was 
no nonsense about her parents. They were not the 
kind that would be likely to have a spoiled child. They 

[129] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

would not be slow to tell her that she was the child of 
humble parents, if she had any disposition to be hard 
to manage, as so often happens in the case of an only 
child. But little Rita gave no trouble to her parents. 
She was ever docile, ever ready to do her share of 
work in the household, sedate beyond her years, so 
serious, too, that she did not seek amusement in those 
things which take up the interest of the ordinary child. 
Even from her smallest years she sought to serve God 
as well as she could. At a time when other little girls 
are letting their fancy run away after pretty dresses, 
Rita used to hide herself whenever there was any at- 
tempt to deck her out in the simple finery the doting 
parents chose for her; at a time when others are play- 
ing with dolls, Rita was initiating herself into the 
wonders of serving God by prayer and fasting. 
Imagine a little tot wanting to fast for the good of 
her soul ! And then, to make it more meritorious, we 
find her giving part of every meal to some poor 
child that was not as well off as this favored daughter 
of the Mancinis. To them she seemed as a child to 
be envied; but they did not see or envy the wonderful 
graces which she prized more than all material 
blessings. A precocious child, one might say ; too old- 
fashioned. But hardly so to Him who delighted in 
having the little ones about Him. Sometimes, one 
may say, there is the disposition to underestimate the 
intelligence of children. They understand more than 
we give them credit for, and particularly in the things 
of faith. The sainted Pontiff, Pius X, gave the final 

[130] 



ST. RITA 

answer to the minimizers of the child mind when, in 
his decree about the age at which children should be 
admitted to Holy Communion, he echoed these undy- 
ing words, the eulogy of the child : "Suffer the little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for 
of such is the kingdom of heaven." Rita was wise 
beyond her years, but why marvel at it when she 
had the God of wisdom as her teacher? 

We could dwell long on the life of the child at this 
period. Even then she loved to meditate upon the 
Passion of Christ. She had a little room apart from 
the rest of the household, and thither, when her work 
of helping her mother keep house was over, she 
would retire and find her simple joy in the pictures 
of the Passion which she had placed on the walls. She 
never tired of being alone with God. No wonder, 
then, that after such a childhood of prayer she ex- 
pressed the wish, when she was twelve, to leave home 
and become a nun in one of the convents of Cascia 
where so many holy men and women had sanctified 
their souls. 

The parents must have foreseen that the day would 
come when she would desire to leave them for the 
higher life. All her training, even the training which 
they had given her, was to that end. Yet when the 
little maiden told them that she wished to enter the 
convent they were amazed and displeased. They loved 
her so much, how could they bear the thought of part- 
ing with her who was their very life? 

We see the same thing so often to-day. Even pious 
[131] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

parents that should know better make an uproar when 
their daughter expresses a desire to give herself to 
God. They cannot bear to separate from her, for- 
sooth; yet they will see the same girl marry and go 
away hundreds of miles to live where they may never 
see her again. They know that the girl will be happy 
in the convent, but they feel obliged to protest, and so 
in many cases, by their unreasonable opposition, spoil 
the girl's vocation and perhaps ruin her life forever. 
It is not true parental love ; it is downright selfishness. 
Sometimes it would seem that God permits this opposi- 
tion in order to test the love and loyalty of the one 
He calls. And it may have been that the opposition 
that came to Rita from her pious father and mother 
was in order to lead her through suffering to greater 
virtue. At any rate, the old folks, honestly convinced, 
no doubt, that Rita's duty was to remain with them in 
their old age, persuaded her to put aside for a time at 
least the thought of entering the convent. Perhaps 
they considered that at her tender age — she was then 
but twelve- — she scarcely knew her own mind and was 
unable to judge the mighty question of a life's voca- 
tion. So, covering up her disappointment, and feeling 
that God would work out the matter in His own good 
time, the little maid assented to the will of her parents 
and continued to be the sunshine of their lives. 

But even a greater sacrifice was demanded of the 
girl by her parents, who strangely thought that they 
were working for her best interests. Not content with 
having her put aside the thought of becoming a nun 

[132] 



ST. RITA 

during their lifetime, they determined that she should 
put it aside altogether by marrying. It may have been 
the wish to perpetuate their family, it may have been 
the wish to put her under the protecting power of a 
husband before they passed on; whatever the reason, 
they informed Rita that they had chosen a desirable 
young man as her husband. Her tears were unavail- 
ing. What did she know about the world, what did 
she know about what was best for her own good? 
Parents generally think themselves so wise, and some- 
times their wisdom is folly. The Mancinis were cer- 
tainly foolish in their choice of a husband for Rita. 
To them it seemed the finest match possible. The 
young Ferdinand was well to do, a dashing fellow 
whom any girl ought to be pleased to get for a hus- 
band. They were simple old folks who knew little 
of the world, and imagined that everybody was as 
good as themselves. They were woefully mistaken 
in their chosen son-in-law. 

Ferdinand was a product of the terrible time in 
which he lived. It was a time when the world was 
upset with political disturbance. Even the Church 
was harassed by anti-Popes. Morals were free and 
easy; violence was the rule of the day. Ferdinand 
was hardly the man to wed a shrinking, humble maiden 
like Rita. She married him, nevertheless, because it 
was the will of her father and mother. But she rued 
the day almost immediately. He was a proud and 
haughty fellow who very likely thought that he had 
made a wonderful condescension in marrying the 

[133] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

daughter of poor farmers. Not only was he surly to 
her, but even abusive, and many a time she had to 
take a blow from him. She was his slave, and not 
even could she leave the house to go to church without 
asking his permission. He was that worst type of 
man — the man who bullies his wife. That was hard 
enough to stand; but there was a more bitter drop in 
the cup. The young wife soon found out that he was 
dissipated. A woman can stand almost anything but 
that from the man she loves. And Rita did love her 
husband dearly. What a pain, then, it was to see him 
dissolute, to know that he was squandering his money, 
to know that he had little or no religion — in plain 
words, that he was an immoral, brutal tyrant. But, 
heart-broken as Rita was with the realization that her 
marriage was a big mistake, she was not crushed by 
it. It was then that her spirit of religion came to her 
help and prevented her from being a surly and dis- 
consolate wife. Rita made up her mind that she had a 
work to do in the conversion of her husband. She did 
not meet railing with railing. She took his abuse 
silently, waited on him hand and foot, studied his 
temper, and more than all prayed for him incessantly. 
As one reads the story of Rita's married life one 
sees why God permitted her to be married to such a 
man, even while he had favored her with such wonder- 
ful graces all her life and filled her with longings to 
serve him in the cloister. It was to give to ill-treated 
wives a model. How many a woman has been broken 
in body and soul by living with an unworthy husband ! 

[i34] 



ST. RITA 

How many have suffered and complained, yet thought 
it an impossibility to bring the erring one back to God ! 
The good Catholic wife will pray for such a man in 
season and out, knowing that, desperate as the case 
may seem, all things are possible to prayer. 

And Rita's prayers, her humble submission, her 
gentleness in suffering, were rewarded. She was mak- 
ing then, even when she knew it not, the novitiate to 
that later suffering which was to contribute so much 
to her sanctification. The erring husband at length 
had the grace to see himself in all his meanness. One 
day, overcome by the sudden realization of what a 
treasure he had in his wife, seeing her the gentle 
martyr to his brutality, he threw himself at her feet 
and begged her to forgive him for all his crimes 
against her, promising that never again would he 
offend her in any particular. He was as good as his 
word. He overcame his temper, was gentle with, her, 
and returned to the practice of his religion. It was at 
last a marriage of love on both sides. Patience and 
prayer had won the day. 

But Ferdinand was not as fortunate in regard to 
others whom he had antagonized. It was not to be ex- 
pected that all should have the forgiving disposition of 
his wife. He had made many enemies. It was a time 
when enemies were readily made, and Ferdinand, 
with his nasty disposition, made more than his share. 
He paid for his temper in the end. We do not know 
now the details of the trouble that finally led to his 
death. But one day his dead body was found in a 

[135] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

field a short distance from the village. He had been 
brutally murdered. It is easy to picture the anguish 
of poor Rita when they brought home to her the life- 
less form of the man she had so loved during the 
eighteen years of their married life. She wept bitter 
tears and was inconsolable. 

Not only was there the grief at his death. That 
would have been hard enough if she had seen him die 
in his bed with the consolation of a last word with him, 
and the greater consolation of seeing him receive the 
last rites of the Church. But he had died suddenly, 
had been murdered by his enemies, with scarcely time 
to call to God for mercy. Had he died in the grace 
of God? Had he saved his soul? That is the first 
thought that comes to the Catholic on hearing of a 
sudden death: did he have the priest? did he have a 
chance to make his peace with God? And that was 
the cause of Rita's deepest sorrow, the uncertainty as 
to how it was with the soul of her husband. But again 
she bowed to the will of God and took up her burden 
of sorrow, determined to devote herself now more 
than ever to her duty of looking after the two sons 
who at the time of their father's death were just com- 
ing to their youth. 

The two boys, Gian Giaeomo and Paolo, are said 
by some biographers to have been twins. They had 
been a consolation to her, and yet a sorrow, too. Very 
early the mother had discovered that they took after 
their father to a great extent. They were irascible, 
and besides that, they had his bad example before the-i 

[136] 



ST. RITA 

to counteract the good advice and gentle example of 
their mother. Rita had many a worry over them, and 
many a prayer did she say that they might not follow 
in the footsteps of their father. Who could blame 
her to hope, in the midst of her sorrow at the death 
of her husband, that these growing youths would be 
her consolation, the prop of her old age? 

And one day, perhaps the saddest day in her life, 
she learned that her boys were planning murder ; they 
were bound to have revenge for the death of their 
father. They knew who had killed him, and they 
would have a life for a life. Rita taxed them with 
the crime they were meditating. They listened to her, 
perhaps impatiently; but their hearts were not soft- 
ened. What did a woman know about the manly sport 
of revenge? Was it not true manhood to avenge the 
blood of their father? In spite of what she said, they 
would merely seem to assent to her wishes, pretend 
forgiveness of their father's enemies, and then when 
the opportunity presented itself they would exact jus- 
tice. When it was all over she would have to put up 
with it. 

But mothers are wiser than sons give them credit 
for. Rita knew that she had been powerless to change 
their hearts. But if she could not do it, she knew One 
that could. She threw herself before the feet of God 
and begged Him to have pity on her mother-love. She 
begged Him to change the hearts of her boys and pre- 
vent them from destroying their own souls by the 
crime of murder. And then she made the supreme act 

[137] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of renunciation. If God would not change their 
hearts, at least she begged Him to take them out of 
this world before they had the opportunity to commit 
the murder they were planning. What a heartless 
thing! one might be tempted to say. How could a 
mother ask God to have her children die ? Surely she 
could have no love for them, to ask such a thing. But 
it was just there that Rita showed how much she did 
love her children. They were dear to her, dear as any 
mother's children are, but her love was not selfish. 
She would not keep her children to herself at any cost. 
Their first duty was to God. And even while they had 
sinned in their hearts she chose rather that they should 
lie dead at her feet than that they should carry into 
execution their wish for revenge. One is reminded of 
the great Blanche, who used to say to her son: "My 
son, you know how much I love you, but I would 
rather see you dead at my feet than know that you 
were guilty of one mortal sin." That is the real 
mother-love, to set itself aside and to think only of 
the glory of God and the salvation of the souls of 
those committed to its care. 

It was an act of heroism on the part of Rita. To 
me it seems the supreme moment in her life, the thing 
that I always think of when I hear the name of St. 
Rita mentioned. And God answered that prayer. The 
two sons were taken ill, their hearts were freed of 
the desire of revenge, they atoned for their sins and 
died. And the strange thing is that their mother did 
not weep for them. Heartless? Any one that knows 

[138] 



ST. RITA 

Rita knows what a tender heart she had. That heart 
was wrenched by the parting with her two beautiful 
boys, but what was the grief of the world to the 
thought that God had reclaimed them from their sins 
and brought them to Himself? She had saved the 
souls of her boys ; what mattered anything else ? Sup- 
posing that they had grown to manhood, had attained 
wealth, yet all the while had upon their souls the sin 
of murder, and had as a result of that finally lost 
their souls? Then their lives would have been in 
vain. To Rita, in her wisdom, sin was the great evil, 
and not death. She could grieve over sin, but not 
over the death even of her loved ones when she knew 
that they were all right with God. 

Rita was now alone in the world. In a short time 
she had been bereft of her husband and her two sons. 
How many a woman in her case would think that she 
had been unjustly visited. But she never made com- 
plaint. It was the way of the Cross along which 
Christ was leading her who even as a little child hid 
herself in her own little room in order to meditate 
upon His Passion and Death. Like her old mother 
before her, she was now more than ever the consola- 
tion of the village. In her simple manner of living 
she did not need much to get along with, and all that 
she could afford she gave to the poor. It is told of her 
that many a time she would take off her cloak and 
give it to some poor person she met on the road. Her 
clothes were of the simplest, and always did she wear 

[139] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

the sackcloth as a reminder to her that she must ever 
be doing penance. 

Rita did not remain long in the world after the 
death of her children. The voice that had called her 
to a life of religion had never been stilled. She had 
married out of obedience to the wish of her parents, 
but all the while her heart was set on serving God in 
the cell of some convent. Now, when her work was 
done, when she had fulfilled her duty to her own — 
for the life of this woman was ever a life of duty 
and self-sacrifice, whether to parents or to her hus- 
band and children — up from the depths of her heart 
there sounded once more the call of God. 

She had often been to the neighboring city of Cascia 
and had envied the good holy women who had been 
allowed to spend their lives in the cloister. In 
Cascia there was a convent of nuns, at that time called 
the nuns of St. Mary Magdalen, who followed the rule 
of St. Augustine. Thither she came one day in fear 
and humility and asked the good nuns to let her join 
them. They were amazed at her request. Their con- 
vent was only for virgins; it was contrary to their 
custom to receive a woman that had been married. 
It was a terrible blow to the poor widow, but she did 
not complain at the refusal of the nuns to take her in. 
Rather did she reproach herself and seek to find in her 
soul the cause of her apparent rejection by God. 
Again she went back to them, and again Was she re- 
jected; and still again. But she was not daunted. 
She was the valiant woman. God had ever heard her 

[140] 



ST. RITA 

prayers, and he would hear them now. He was trying 
her, leading her, as she thought, to make herself less 
unworthy of being admitted among his chosen ones. 

It was a wondrous way in which God did finally 
answer those prayers. She was then thirty-two years 
of age, a young woman who had crowded into a few 
years the sufferings of centuries. One night, when 
she was at her prayers, she had a vision. St. John 
the Baptist appeared to her and gave her a sign to 
follow him. In fear and trembling she did so, and 
was led by him to a spot where St. Augustine and St. 
Nicholas Tolentine awaited her. These three saints 
had been the special objects of her devotions, and now 
she understood that they were to reward that devo- 
tion. They led the way and she followed, raised out 
of herself at the thought of the wonderful thing which 
was happening to her. Up hill, over the rocks they 
led her until they came to the convent of Cascia. 
Silently some unseen hand opened the gates to her and 
she found herself in the enclosure of the convent as 
the heavenly guides withdrew. It is only a saint that 
can imagine Rita's devotions that night, as she waited 
for the dawn to break upon the gray walls of the con- 
vent. Her prayers were answered at last. 

Judge of the amazement of the nuns, when they rose 
to sing the morning office, to find within the enclosure 
of their convent the woman whom they had so re- 
peatedly rejected. They were perhaps a bit indignant 
at what they considered her effrontery, impatient at 
her determination in asking for what they had told 

[141] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

her finally was an impossibility. Many a question they 
put to her, and then Rita humbly told them about her 
vision, about the great saints that had led her from 
her home at Rocca Porena through the darkness of 
the night into the sacred precincts of the convent. 
Would they not now believe that it was God that was 
calling her and let her become one of their number? 
It was needless to ask. The nuns knew that they had 
seen the signs of God's finger. With hearts burst- 
ing with joy at the marvel God had wrought, they 
welcomed the widow to their home, put upon her the 
customary penitential habit, and admitted her to the 
novitiate, — her who had been through a novitiate such 
as few endure. It is beyond my province, dealing as 
I am with the life of Rita as wife and mother, to de- 
tail her life in the cloister. It is a simple life, un- 
eventful as regards those happenings which are sup- 
posed to lend interest to a biography, but not unevent- 
ful to Rita herself. In the cloister her soul had its 
great chance to expand. And the striking thing about 
that hidden life is that it differs so little from the life 
she had been leading in the world. Sanctity was no 
sudden change for her. She had been practising all 
virtues as well as she could from the infant days when 
she wished to vow herself to God. Her ardor was 
but increased when she became a novice. But the 
good nuns, who were well accustomed to behold the 
operations of grace in the souls of one another, mar- 
velled at the beauty of soul of the widow who had 
come among them almost miraculously. It was such 

[142] 



ST. RITA 

great virtue that God rewarded it with many a vision. 
But at the same time it was not an easy virtue. Rita 
attained sanctity by the only road by which it is pos- 
sible to attain it — by the road of the Cross. She had 
her temptations — temptations even against that virtue 
of purity which so shines out in all her life from her 
infancy — and she fought against them with the same 
old, reliable weapons of mortification, fasting, and 
prayer. She did not hesitate even to scourge herself, 
to wear the hair cloth, to keep vigil in prayer during 
the long hours of the night. No wonder that, as the 
result of this rigorous penance, the time soon came 
when one could almost see her bones. 

So there passed thirty years. , Think of it ! Thirty 
years of fasting, of scourging, of every conceivable 
mortification. And then, as if this old woman — she 
was then sixty-two years of age — had not suffered 
enough, God sent her an affliction which, while it was 
the source of terrible suffering, was also the mark of 
His great love for her. 

One day, she with other nuns listened to the ser- 
mon of St. James of the Marshes, who was sent forth 
to preach the Crusade, and as he spoke of the Passion 
of Christ, her heart overflowed with love for the 
Crucified. Returning to her cell, she cast herself at 
the feet of the Crucifix and begged Christ to let her 
taste at least of His bitter chalice. Immediately, one 
of the thorns detached itself from His crown and 
struck into the left side of her forehead, almost pene- 
trating the bone and causing her the most exquisite 

[143] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

pain. As the time went on the wound grew larger, 
festered, and became infested with worms — "her little 
angels," as she would call them because of the suffer- 
ing and the means to do penance which they brought 
her. For fifteen years this continued ; the sore became 
obnoxious to sight and smell — so much so that Rita 
was obliged to keep to her cell so as not to offend 
the other nuns. That was her dearest treasure, the 
proof of divine love. When she went to Rome on 
one occasion to gain the indulgence of the Jubilee, the 
sore healed miraculously, but broke out when she re- 
turned to her cloister. 

So it went on till the end — suffering and still more 
suffering. At last she was stricken with her mortal 
illness, an illness that lasted full four years. During 
all that time she remained confined to her bed, never 
giving annoyance, always edifying those who marveled 
at such patience in the midst of terrible agony. Her 
only regret was that she had become so useless to the 
community, not realizing that the daily sight of such 
heroic patience was the greatest service she could 
render her sisters in religion. 

One day, towards the end, a relative called to visit 
her and asked her if there were any favor she could 
do her. "Yes," said the old nun, "I beg you to go to 
the garden of my house as soon as you reach Rocca 
Porena and pluck a rose there and bring it to me." 
The visitor thought that Rita was wandering in her 
mind, but returning to the little village which had 
been the scene of so much of the happiness and the 

[144] 



ST. RITA 

sorrow of Rita's life, what was her surprise, though 
it was the bitter month of January, to see one lone red 
rose on the bush in the garden where once Rita, the 
happy wife and mother, had tended her flowers and 
prayerfully planned the future of those children now 
with God these many years. It was an amazing hap- 
pening to the sisters, yet they had long been aware of 
the special favors God was showering upon her. That 
miracle of the rose has often served the artists who 
have sought to portray the gentle St. Rita. 

It was a beautiful prelude to the end. The rose was 
to bloom forth in undying glory. Forty-four years had 
Rita been a nun, and then, in the year 1457, in the 
seventy-sixth year of her life, this glorious rose was 
transplanted to the gardens of heaven. 

And the rose has never lost its fragrance. Even 
when Rita died there was an odor of sweetness from 
the poor emaciated body, even from that sore which 
had always been so repellent to the onlooker. That 
odor has continued ever since. Her body has never 
seen corruption, and even the poor garments in which 
she was laid to rest have been saved from destruction. 

From the very day of her death, Rita's power with 
God has been most manifest. Countless are the cures 
that have been effected through her intercession. 
There has been devotion to her almost since the day 
of her death, a devotion that has in these latter days 
spread with such rapidity over the face of the earth. 
Pope Leo XIII, in pronouncing her canonization in 
the year 1900, referred to her lovingly as "Umbria's 

[145] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

precious jewel." She is even more than that, she is 
a cherished jewel, not only of Umbria, but of the 
whole world. 

Surely the life of St. Rita is one to marvel at, and 
one cannot be surprised at the hold which her devotion 
has upon the hearts of the faithful. She may be 
called a cosmopolitan saint, since she is a model for 
womanhood in every walk of life. The nun in her 
cloister can look to her for lessons in the hidden life; 
the child just beginning to understand the mysteries 
of God can see in her the kind of maid that God would 
have her be ; the maiden can find in her an example of 
humility, obedience, and sweetest purity. 

But what a lesson she is to the wife and mother! 
And perhaps the reason that God in these days has so 
popularized the devotion to St. Rita is that wives and 
mothers particularly may learn from the saint their 
awful responsibility before God in this sphere. We 
are living at a time when marriage outside the Church 
has become a farce. The bond that was to endure till 
death is severed on the slightest provocation. There 
is little danger that Catholic women will ever take that 
attitude towards a holy sacrament; nevertheless, see- 
ing this disregard of the sacred bond by so many of 
their neighbors, there is always the danger of being in- 
fected with some of that spirit, of becoming im- 
patient under the trials of the marriage state. What 
an example is Rita the wife ! For years she endured 
insult and brutality; her loving affection was profaned, 
yet she bore it all with patience using this suffering 

[146] 



ST. RITA 

to sanctify her soul, and praying incessantly for the 
one whom many another woman in her pride would 
have despised. 

What an example, too, to the mothers of men ! One 
gets a truer insight into the soul of Rita, beholding 
her on her knees begging God either for the conversion 
or the death of her beloved sons, than from all the 
ecstasies with which God rewarded her. Even if God 
had called her from earth in that moment of supreme 
sacrifice, we do not hesitate to say that He would 
have found her a saint. What a wonderful thing is 
mother-love even at its lowest! What a heavenly 
thing it is when it shines through the sanctity of a 
Rita ! That is what we may call her, then — the Saint 
of Mother-love. 



Ti47l 



ROYAL LADIES 

WHAT women there are among the Chris- 
tians !" exclaimed a pagan in the early days of 
the Church. He had known woman only in her degra- 
dation, as the plaything, the slave of man, his chattel, 
his inferior. No wonder he marveled when he saw 
the kind of womanhood the Church produces; for to 
the man with even the smallest knowledge of history, 
there is nothing more evident than the fact that it was 
the Church that put woman back on the pedestal from 
which she had been cast. Christ had raised marriage 
to the dignity of a sacrament. In His Church His 
Mother occupied a unique place. To give Mary the 
honor He wished her was to glorify the womanhood 
of which she was the representative. This is so true, 
that history since then has shown that the dignity, 
the honor given woman in any age is in proportion to 
that age's veneration for the Mother of God. 

The history of the Church may be traced in the 
history of the women she has produced. She has 
found her women-saints in every condition of life, — 
in the cloister, in the world, in the palace, in the cot- 
tage. We have seen the great saints that God made 
out of some of the queens. And now we would take 
a rapid glance at the other great women of royal 

[148] 



ROYAL LADIES 

blood who, amid the temptations that come from 
worldly grandeur, found the way to serve God. 

Sometimes the world runs away with the idea that 
it is essentially an impossibility for those in high sta- 
tion to be "poor in spirit." How false is that notion is 
plain from the study of the lives of the saints. Often 
in life the royal robe covers the hair shirt. There is 
for us all an example in this. It is that if these 
women, flattered by the world, surrounded by all that 
panders to the passions, yet put aside all contentment 
in these things to choose humility of heart, how much 
is expected of us whose eyes are not blinded by the 
glare that beats upon thrones! 

It is not only among the Roman matrons that we 
find these high-souled women. They flower forth in 
every age and in every clime. Sometimes we find 
them, as in the case of St. Amelia, not only attaining 
sanctity themselves, but also leading their family to 
holiness. Amelia was married to Witger. They had 
three children, all of whom are canonized saints — St. 
Gudula, the patroness of Brussels; St. Reinelda; and 
St. Emembertus. After the birth of their last child, 
Gudula, Amelia and her husband withdrew from the 
world, she becoming a nun and he a monk. All this 
happened in the seventh century, — a long time ago, 
you say; but life was as sweet in those days as in our 
own; there was the same affection between husband 
and wife, the same love for children. Yet this holy 
woman and her husband, in order to come nearer to 
God, made a sacrifice of their affection to each other 

[ 149] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and to their children. Little has been preserved of 
their history, yet what greater tribute can be paid to 
this mother than this, that she not only sanctified her- 
self, but also raised up for God three saints? 

In that same century we find another saintly mother, 
St. Rictrude. She was a grand lady of France and 
was married to one of the lords of the court of Clovis. 
Her husband was assassinated, and then she entered 
the cloister, where she led a life of penance. She had 
four children, and all four are saints. 

Sometimes, too, we find both wife and husband 
saints. In that same century we have the striking ex- 
ample of St. Waltrude. She was a countess and the 
daughter of a princess, Bertille, who was also a saint. 
She had two sons and two daughters. She induced 
her husband to enter a monastery, and founded a 
religious community where she lived a life of great 
penance. The husband is canonized as St. Vincent of 
Soignies. 

In later times we find another instance of this double 
sanctity in the case of St. Delphina and her husband, 
St. Elzear. He was a very charitable man and she 
assisted him in the work of caring for the poor. He 
was a count and very wealthy. It is interesting to 
read the rules which he drew up for the conduct of 
his house. "Yet I desire," says he, "not that my cas- 
tle should be a cloister, nor my people hermits. Let 
them be merry, and sometimes divert themselves; but 
never at the expense of conscience or with the danger 
of offending God." 

[150] 



ROYAL LADIES 

What a union between husband and wife when both 
find their greatest joy in serving God! One finds an 
example of it in St. Mary of Oignies in that same 
thirteenth century. Her parents were wealthy, but 
she and her husband did not think it beneath them to 
serve the lepers. 

So with the Venerable Raingarda. A great lady 
was she, but her true greatness consisted in the care 
with which she trained her children to virtue. She 
and her husband agreed to leave the world and enter 
religion. He died before he was able to put the plan 
into execution, but she entered a monastery and gave 
herself up to a life of penance. There are so many 
of these cases that one can only give them the barest 
mention. We read in the life of Maria de Agreda 
that she and her mother entered the convent of the 
discalced Franciscans, and that at the same time her 
father and her two brothers became Franciscan friars. 

Sometimes we find holy widows withdrawing into 
the convent with their children. This was so in the 
case of St. Bertha in the early part of the eighth cen- 
tury. She had been nobly born, being the daughter of 
a count at the palace of King Clovis II. She was mar- 
ried to Siegfried, a relative of the King. After twenty 
years of married life he died, and Bertha determined 
to build a nunnery and leave the world. This she did 
and was followed into the convent by her two elder 
daughters, Deotila and Gertrude. Bertha became ab- 
bess. Sometime before her death she resigned the 

[ 151 ] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

office and shut herself up in a little cell against the wall 
of the church to be alone with her soul. 

No doubt when these holy women made such sacri- 
fices, there were many of their friends who laughed 
at them and thought them fools for giving up the en- 
joyments of the world. Yet, strangely enough, it is 
only the names of these women who hid themselves 
from the world that are now remembered, while those 
that served the world are forgotten. So it is even 
with the world. But what of the glory that God has 
shown in heaven to them that chose to serve Him 
rather than the world? Sometimes, as in the case of 
St. Ida, they lived the life of the cloister even in the 
midst of courtly pleasures. She was the daughter of 
a count, and was educated at the court of Charle^- 
magne. She married a great lord of the court, and 
the Emperor gave her a fortune. It was a happy 
union while it lasted, but the husband died young and 
Ida devoted herself to penance and prayer. She lived 
in the world and looked after her family, yet her life 
was that of a nun. She suffered, too, but patiently 
bore her ills. She devoted the immense revenues of 
her estate to the care of the poor. She is a fine exam- 
ple of a saint, in the world but not of the world. 

Sometimes the story of these saintly wives and 
mothers reads like a romance. That of St. Godelina 
is a veritable novel. She was born in 10149 in France, 
the youngest child of a great lord. Even in her child- 
hood she was noted for her great piety and charity. 
The poor used to flock to her, for they knew she was 

[152] 



ROYAL LADIES 

always ready to help them. So great was her gen- 
erosity that her father's steward, and her father him- 
self, pious and charitable as he was, used to find fault 
with her, and seek to restrain her generosity. Soon 
the fame of her beauty and virtue spread over all the 
country, and her hand was sought by many suitors. 
But the girl — she was then only eighteen — did not 
care to marry. She wanted to enter the cloister. Fi- 
nally she was prevailed upon by political influence to 
marry Bertolf of Ghistelles, and set out with him for 
her new home. It was an unfortunate marriage. 
Bertolf s mother at once hated her son's wife, and per- 
suaded him, on the very day they arrived home, to put 
her aside, and to imprison her in a narrow cell where 
she almost died from starvation. But even in her 
want she found a way to help the poor, and shared 
with them what was barely enough for herself. At 
last she escaped, and returned to her father, broken- 
hearted and ashamed, for her mother-in-law had cir- 
culated the vilest calumnies against her. 

Her father, indignant at the treatment accorded her, 
so managed things that Bertolf was threatened with all 
the punishments of the Church and State if he did not 
take back his wife and give her the honor due her. 
Bertolf appeared to relent, and finally took back the 
young wife. But persecutions again broke out 
against her, and Bertolf, anxious to be rid of her, ar- 
ranged that, while he was away from home, two of 
his servants should strangle her and make believe that 
she had died a natural death. 

[153] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

And so she was murdered at the age of twenty-one. 
Soon Bertolf married again, and a daughter was 
born to him, but she was blind. It was a hopeless 
case. Bertolf knew it was a punishment for his sin 
against Godelina. He invoked her help for the af- 
flicted child, and the child was miraculously cured. 
To Bertolf it was the hand of God. He became con- 
verted, went to Rome to seek absolution for his sin, 
and after that made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 
So sincere was he in his penitence that he entered a 
monastery and lived there until his death. The daugh- 
ter that had been cured afterwards erected, at his re- 
quest, a Benedictine monastery dedicated to St. Gode- 
lina, and into it she retired from the world. It is of 
such stories of suffering that the lives of the saints are 
made. A hard life for the young wife of twenty-one, 
yet by that way of the Cross she came to eternal life. 
There were many Godelinas, no doubt, in those days 
who went through life happy, singing, without a care, 
and thought the life of this afflicted one a terrible 
calamity. Yet all are gone, not even their names re- 
main, and she, the suffering one, has been glorified 
during these thousand years. God has the final judg- 
ment. 

We have seen in the case of St. Bertha that she 
entered the convent and brought her two eldest daugh- 
ters with her. Sometimes it was the other way about, 
and we find the daughters leading the way for the 
mother. So it was in the case of the Blessed Hortu- 
lana, the mother of the great St. Clare, foundress of 

[i54] 



ROYAL LADIES 

the Poor Clares. Hortulana had belonged to a noble 
family, and had married Favorini Scifi, Count of 
Sasso-Russo. The family was very wealthy and lived 
in a great palace at Assisi. The mother, Hortulana, 
was a woman of great piety. This is as evident in 
the lives of her children as in her own life. She had 
turned their hearts to God. 

It was the time of the great St. Francis of Assisi. 
He had come to preach the Lenten course of sermons 
at Assisi, and Clare, who had always longed for a 
life of deep spirituality, begged him to help her lead 
such a life of poverty as he himself was leading. The 
result was that she left her father's castle, and, ac- 
companied by her aunt, Bianca, and another compan- 
ion, came to the humble chapel of St. Francis, and 
there, laying aside her rich dress, had her hair cut off 
and was clothed in a rough garment, and so vowed 
herself to Jesus Christ. Her father was furious, and 
even tried to drag her home by force. His anger was 
all the greater when, some days afterwards, her sister 
Agnes — St. Agnes of Assisi — came to join her. 

We have not to deal with the life of St. Clare. It was 
a life of extraordinary beauty and sanctity. She had 
the happiness of seeing not only her sister Agnes, and 
another sister, Beatrix, but also her mother, Hortu- 
lana, enter the Order which God had raised her up to 
establish. The glory of the daughter obscures that 
of the mother; but as we contemplate the graves of all 
these holy women of one family buried together in 
the Church of St. Clare at Assisi, we must not forget 

[155] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

how much of the sanctity of the children was due to 
the pious mother who, amidst wealth and luxury, 
formed the hearts of her daughters to love the mean- 
est poverty. One can never think of St. Clare without 
thinking of her mother, the Blessed Hortulana. In- 
deed, how can one think of the life of any saint with- 
out remembering her who did so much to turn the 
little heart to God in the days of childhood? 

Queen Blanche is remembered to-day for the warn- 
ing she gave the little boy who later became the great 
St. Louis : "I love you, my dear son, with all the ten- 
derness a mother is capable of; but I would infinitely 
rather see you fall down dead at my feet, than that 
you should ever commit a mortal sin." 

Every day, we are told, he remembered those words. 
St. Louis is inseparable from his mother, Queen 
Blanche. 

One sees that same spirit of faith in the bringing up 
of her son in the life of the mother of St. Antonio 
Maria Zaccaria, the founder of the Barnabites. His 
father had died when Antonio was a mere infant, but 
the good mother set about his training, and above all 
else taught him compassion for the poor and made him 
her almoner. It was this training of childhood that 
turned his heart to the work that occupied his life. 
When his work was done, at the early age of thirty- 
seven, he came back to the house of his mother to 
die. What a reward to her to see her son die the 
death of a saint ! 

Even in the peaceful days of the Church there have 
[156 J 



ROYAL LADIES 

been martyrs, and as such St. Helen of Skofde, in 
Sweden, is venerated. She lived in the early part of 
the twelfth century, belonged to a noble family, and 
had all that the world could give. She was married, 
but as soon as her husband died she devoted herself to 
a life of prayer and charity. She was especially fond 
of the poor, and her home was always open to them. 

Her sorrow came through her daughter. She was 
married to a tyrant who was finally put to death by 
his servants. They declared that they had been in- 
cited to the crime by Helen, and as soon as she re- 
turned from the Holy Land, whither she had gone on 
a pilgrimage, she was murdered by the relatives of 
her daughter's husband. Many cures were said to 
have been wrought through her intercession ; so much 
so that from that time on St. Helena was a favorite 
saint in Sweden. Near the church which she had built 
was a holy well, which became the scene of many 
miracles. It was the tribute of God to one of the 
world's great mothers. 

A truly great wife and mother was St. Hedwig, 
Duchess of Silesia. She was born in 1174 at the cas- 
tle of Andechs, the daughter of a count. She was one 
of eight children, all of whom occupied a high place 
in the world. Two of her brothers became bishops 
and one sister an abbess. All the others became rulers 
or were married to rulers. Her sister Gertrude mar- 
ried the King of Hungary and was the mother of St. 
Elizabeth of Hungary. 

Hedwig was educated in the monastery, and at the 
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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

age of twelve married Henry, who later became Duke 
of Silesia. He was a splendid ruler, a man of great 
piety, and a fit husband for the woman that was to 
become a great saint. In his government he was 
helped greatly by the wisdom of his wife, who by her 
support and encouragement of the monasteries con- 
tributed much to the spread of civilization. Monastery 
after monastery was founded by the pious couple; hos- 
pitals, too ; and we see the pious Duchess tending with 
her own hands the poor leper women. She had the 
happiness of seeing her daughter Gertrude abbess of 
one of the monasteries established by her. It was a 
life of devotion to God; yet it was a life filled with 
worldly duties. Hedwig was the mother of seven 
children, some of whom died in infancy. After the 
birth of the last child the husband and wife made a 
vow of chastity. 

They were a devoted couple, but they had their 
trials. Once, when he was set upon by his enemies 
and severely wounded, we find her hastening to his 
side to tend him ; and again, when he was taken pris- 
oner, it was she who went to seek his release. When 
at last he died, she went to live in one of the monaster- 
ies she had founded, in order that she might devote the 
rest of her days to penance and prayer. She was to 
the end a lover of the poor, and used up her great 
fortune in acts of kindness. Of all her children, only 
one, Gertrude, survived her. Hedwig had many sor- 
rows, yet she bore them all for the love of God. With 
all her cares, how she might have pleaded that she 

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ROYAL LADIES 

had no time for prayer and charity. But she was a 
valiant woman. She knew that one thing only is neces- 
sary — the love of God; and so with that thought a 
great mother became a great saint. 

It is no uncommon thing, after all, in the history 
of the saints to find several saints in one family. A 
saintly mother inspires her children. It was so with 
St. Kentigerna of Ireland. She was of royal blood, 
the daughter of Kelly, Prince of Leinster. After the 
death of her husband she left Ireland and consecrated 
herself to God in the religious life. Not only did she 
become a saint, but her son, Felan, the abbot, also was 
a saint. How much of the credit of his sanctity is 
due the good mother that inspired him with a love 
of virtue! 

Frequently as this case has happened in the Church, 
it is always a marvel. Does it not show the importance 
of good example? How many a wife has sanctified 
her husband ! How many a mother has sanctified her 
children! As Louis XIV said of his great queen, 
Madame de Maintenon, who had always been so chari- 
table, "She helped me in everything, especially in sav- 
ing my soul." One sees that power of good example 
manifested to a remarkable degree in the story of St. 
Bridget of Sweden and her daughter, St. Catherine of 
Sweden. 

St. Bridget is the most celebrated saint of the North, 
due to her founding of the Brigittines and the writing 
of her Revelations. She was born in 1303, the daugh- 
ter of the governor of the province of Uppland, a very 

[iS9] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

wealthy landholder, and his wife, Ingeborg. They 
were a very pious couple, and it is needless to say that 
Bridget received a thorough grounding in piety and 
virtue. Even from the time she was seven years old 
she showed signs of one day becoming a great saint. 
When her mother died, she was placed in the care of 
an aunt, to whose wise guidance she owed much of the 
glory that later came to her name. When she was 
thirteen she was married to Ulf Gudmarsson, who 
was then eighteen. He was well suited to her, and she 
to him. 

Ulf was a pious youth and became more so through 
the good example and prayers of his young wife. 
Bridget surely has every claim to be called a great 
mother, since she had eight children, among them St. 
Catherine of Sweden. But great as her home duties 
must have been, she had time for the service of God. 
Like all great saints, she had a love for the poor, and 
was always interesting herself in works of charity. 
Soon her name became a household word on account 
of her piety and charity. Even the learned theologians 
of the time looked with admiration upon her. Her 
influence was felt even by them; in fact, it was felt 
by everybody. Her husband died when she was about 
forty years of age, after they both had returned from 
a pious pilgrimage to Spain. 

The widow, who had always been saintly, now de- 
voted herself entirely to the pursuit of sanctity. There 
was no room in her life now for anything but prayer 
and penance. So holy did she become that Christ 

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ROYAL LADIES 

Himself appeared to her, and made revelations to her 
which she wrote down, and which were widely read 
during the Middle Ages. 

But there was practical work for her to do. She 
founded the new religious congregation of the Bri git- 
tines, or Order of St. Saviour, which did so much for 
the uplift of the society of that day. In 1349 she 
went to Rome and lived there the rest of her life, 
twenty-four years, edifying all by her piety and char- 
ity. She died in 1373, and her remains were brought 
back to Vadstena, one of the monasteries she had 
founded, where her daughter Catherine was later su- 
perior. She was canonized in 1391, only eighteen 
years after her death. 

The example of this woman, mother of eight chil- 
dren, is truly remarkable. She did not allow her 
children to stand in the way of her sanctification. 

We often see her spirit in the lives of these holy 
mothers. Like St. Jane Frances de Chantal, they 
stepped over the prostrate bodies of their beloved ones 
in order to come to God. They knew, after all, that 
the better they served their God, the better they served 
their children. 

The youth of St. Catherine was very similar to that 
of her mother. Even from her childhood she showed 
signs of great piety. She would have liked to become 
a religious, but at the command of her father she 
married, at the age of thirteen, a German noble. He, 
too, was a very devout man, and was persuaded by 
his wife to join with her in a vow of chastity. They 

[161] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

made the vow, and then together sought the life of 
perfection. Yet they both had a great love for each 
other. When her mother went to Rome, Catherine 
went with her, and while she was away her husband 
died in Sweden. She remained with her mother and 
together they lived a life of holiness. Catherine was 
sought by other suitors, for she was very beautiful, 
but she would never marry again. So she remained 
at Rome till the death of her mother, and then brought 
her remains back to Sweden. She was made the su- 
perior of the monastery at Vadstena, the mother- 
house of the Brigittines, of which she was an able 
head, and which she ruled till her death in 1381, at 
the age of forty-nine. 

About the time that St. Catherine died, there was 
born in Rome a child whose life of mysticism reminds 
us much of the life of St. Bridget. This was St. 
Frances of Rome, born in 1384, She belonged to a 
noble family, and had all that the world could offer 
the rich. In spite of that, she wanted to leave the 
world and become a religious. But her father ob- 
jected, and at his wish she married Lorenzo de Ponzi- 
ani. She was then only twelve years of age. She had 
several children, but the care of them did not keep her 
from serving God in a special manner. She was a 
devoted mother, and perhaps on that account became a 
great saint. Like all saints, she loved the poor. Be- 
sides that, she had a great desire to save souls. How 
successful she was in that we see in her action in turn- 
ing a great many of the ladies of Roman society from 

[162] 



ROYAL LADIES 

their frivolous amusements and associating them in 
a society similar to that of the Third Order, in which, 
without strict vows, they led lives of devotion. 

Frances went further, and with her husband's con- 
sent practised a life of continence. So great was her 
piety that God blessed her with visions, and also gave 
her the power to work miracles. But the greater His 
gifts to her, the more humble she became. She had 
many trials in her life. Her husband was banished, 
her son was imprisoned, and finally she lost all her 
property. But she did not complain. Her sufferings 
brought her closer to God. 

When her husband died she joined the Oblates, 
which she had been the means of establishing, and was 
made their superior. One day, when her son was 
visiting her, she fell ill and died on the day she had 
foretold, at the age of fifty-six, a woman who had 
done her full duty to her family, yet found time to 
help other souls and to become a saint herself. Surely 
wives and mothers can look to her as a grand ex- 
emplar. 

In the Middle Ages the spirit of the cloister was 
everywhere. The flood of sanctity poured forth into 
the world. They were truly the ages of faith. 

The life of Blessed Margaret of Savoy is repre- 
sentative of the times. She was born in 1382, the 
daughter of Louis of Savoy, Prince of Achaia, and 
through her mother was the granddaughter of a Count 
of Savoy. When she was twenty-one she married 
the Marquis of Montferrat, a widower. Her mar- 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ried life lasted fifteen years, during which time she 
advanced in piety ; and when her husband died she de- 
cided to leave the world, gave over the management 
of the marquisate to her stepson, and went to join 
the Third Order of St. Dominic. The Duke of Milan 
wanted to marry her, and even asked the Pope to re- 
lieve her of her vow, but she refused. She had given 
herself to God, and would not take back the gift. 
With other women of rank, she founded a monastery, 
and there led a life of holiness till her death, in 1464, 
at the age of eighty-two. It was a calm, holy life. 

But not always were the lives of these holy women 
calm and peaceful. Sometimes the crown of thorns 
was pressed down upon their heads. So was it with 
Blessed Seraphina Sforza, born in 1434. She was the 
daughter of the Count of Urbino, and her mother be- 
longed to the famous Colonna family. Her mother's 
brother was Pope Martin V, and under his care Sera- 
phina was brought up in Rome. At the age of four- 
teen she married Alexander Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. 
It was a happy marriage at first, but ten years after 
the marriage the husband began to lead a wicked life, 
so that her heart was broken. She tried to reform him, 
but it was a thankless task. He abused her and even 
attempted to kill her, and at last he forced her to 
enter a convent of the Poor Clares. Far from being 
discouraged, she prayed for him all the more fer- 
vently, and sought to sanctify her own soul. Her 
prayers were answered and the husband was con- 
verted. After his death she became the abbess of the 

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ROYAL LADIES 

monastery at Pesaro. It was a life with a heavy cross, 
yet it was through that suffering from the husband 
she loved that she became a saint. 

Her story is similar to that of another saint of this 
same period, St. Catherine of Genoa. She was born in 
1447, °f tne noble family of the Fieschi. Even as a 
child she was holy and wanted to be a nun. But at 
sixteen she was married to Giuliano Adorno, a gay 
young nobleman. He broke her heart, being a profli- 
gate, and squandering her money as well as his own. 
But she kept on praying for him, and he died penitent. 
She devoted herself to the sick in the hospital of which 
she became superior. It was a life of sacrifice, of 
penance, sickness, humiliation, yet she sanctified it, a 
model wife. 

During the lifetime of these two good wives there 
lived in Brittany another holy wife whose life in its 
trials resembles theirs. This was the Blessed Frances 
d'Amboise, Duchess of Brittany. She was born in 
1447, the daughter of a viscount, and at the age of 
fifteen was married to the Duke of Brittany. It was 
far from being a happy marriage as the world goes, 
for the Duke abused her. But she never made com- 
plaint, and her sweet disposition finally opened his 
eyes to his unworthiness. He did penance and then 
joined her in her works of charity. When he became 
duke she was of great service to him in the govern- 
ment of the duchy. In his will he testified to her de- 
votedness. At length, when he died, she determined 
to enter the community she had helped to found, but 

[165] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

was delayed in following out her plans. After years 
spent in charity she entered the Carmelite Order, of 
which she was elected prioress for life. In this office 
she edified all by her holiness, and died in 1485 in an 
ecstasy. 

There is, indeed, a sameness in the lives of all these 
wives. Over and over again it is the story of a holy 
life in the world, rewarded by the opportunity to 
lead a life holier still in the cloister. 

So with Blessed Margaret of Lorraine. Soon after 
her birth in the castle of her noble family, in 1463, 
she was left an orphan. She was then brought up by 
her grandfather, King Rene of Anjou; but after his 
death she was sent back to her brother, Rene II. When 
she was twenty-five she was married to the Due d'Alen- 
gon. Four years later he died, and she governed the 
duchy. After her children were reared she decided to 
leave her high position in the world and entered a 
monastery, where a year later she died at the age of 
sixty-two, after a life of prayer and penance. At the 
time of the French Revolution her body was profaned 
and thrown into the common burying-place. 

In the history of the establishment of religious com- 
munities one sees that God often chose these holy 
widows to do His work. It was so in the case of the 
founder of the great community that has done so much 
for the Church — the Sisters of Charity of St. Vin- 
cent de Paul. This was the Venerable Louise de 
Marillac Le Gras. 

She was born in Paris in 1591, the daughter of 
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ROYAL LADIES 

Louis de Marillac, Lord of Ferrieres, a good man who 
educated her well. Her mother had died when she 
was very young, and an aunt who was a religious 
looked after the religious education of the girl. To 
her in great part the holy life of Louise may be at- 
tributed. She was a talented girl, and became very 
learned. When she was sixteen she wanted to be a 
nun, but her director advised against it, and finally 
she married Antoine Le Gras, a young secretary under 
Marie de Medici. A son was born to them, and Louise 
was a devoted mother to him. Busy as she was, she 
found time for works of charity, an inclination which 
finally brought her the great blessing of her life. She 
always felt that she should have been a nun, and she 
made a vow that if her husband died she would never 
remarry. She became a penitent of St. Vincent de 
Paul, and through his direction, after the death of her 
husband in 1625, she became especially interested in 
the work for the poor of Paris. 

St. Vincent had founded the Association of Char- 
ity for the relief of the poor and the sick, and this 
led finally to the work of establishing the Sisters of 
Charity, which grew out of the association of young 
ladies whom he had brought from the provinces to 
look after the poor. They used to meet at the home of 
Louise, and thus she began what St. Vincent used to 
call the "little snowball." The snowball has grown 
mightily in all these years, thanks to the energy of 
the great St. Vincent de Paul and the holy widow 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

whom God raised up to do the work. She died in 
1660, a few months before St. Vincent. 

Real Christian motherhood is a thrilling thing. No 
doubt St. Augustine was thinking of his own mother, 
the good St. Monica, when he declared that one woman 
had more humanity than a whole nation. There was 
many a great saint who could thank God for a holy 
mother. What an affecting thing is this very human 
prayer of thanksgiving of an old monk of the Middle 
Ages, the Abbot Guibert de Nogent: "God of mercy 
and of sanctity, I render Thee thanks for all Thy ben- 
efits. At first I thank Thee for having granted me a 
beautiful, chaste, and modest mother who was infi- 
nitely filled with the fear of Thy name." With such 
mothers the great thought was the glory of God and 
the sanctification of the souls of the children rather 
than their worldly advancement. Thus an old chroni- 
cle tells us that when the mother Willa heard that her 
long-lost son Theobald had been found under the cowl 
of a hermit, she left home and country and fled to 
the desert of Salonica, where side by side with him 
she served God till her death. Her joy was not so 
much that she had found her son as that she had found 
him trying to be a saint. It was this vigilant mother- 
love that made it possible in those ages to find whole 
families saints. It was nothing remarkable to hear of 
family after family, father, mother, sons,, and daugh- 
ters, entering the religious life. There were great 
mothers in those days, mothers whose first thought 
was of God. 

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ROYAL LADIES 

But of all Christian mothers, there is none so strik- 
ingly human, and at the same time so thoroughly 
spiritual, as the great wife and mother, St. Jane 
Frances de Chantal, a woman who lived on earth and 
in heaven at one and the same time. 

She was born in 1572, the second child of Benignus 
Fremiot, who was not only a great man of the world, 
having served as President of the Parliament of Bur- 
gundy, but also a man of great piety. His character 
was seen in his children, for it was to him that they 
could attribute all that they became, their good 
mother having died when they were yet almost in- 
fants. His eldest daughter, Margaret, became Coun- 
tess of Effran, and his son served the Church well as 
Archbishop of Bourges. Whenever we think of Jane 
Frances — she received the name Frances at her con- 
firmation — we think of the good father who educated 
her, and to whom she was the favorite. 

In his worldly wisdom he sought to have her well 
married, and chose for her the Baron de Chantal, a 
young officer in the French army who was highly 
favored at court. The Baron was twenty-seven and 
Jane was twenty. It was one of the happiest of mar- 
riages, and the young Baron thought himself the lucki- 
est man on earth when he took home his young bride 
to his fine home at Bourbilly. Young as she was, Jane 
was filled with common sense. She never was an 
idler, and at once she set out to be the real mistress 
of her home. The Baron's household during his long 
absence had been mismanaged, and not only did she 

[169] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

restore order, but she thought it her duty to look after 
the souls of her charges, and saw to it that they at- 
tended Mass regularly and assisted at the daily devo- 
tions in her home. She was bound that they would 
not lose their souls through any neglect on her part. 
Even in those days her great aim was to please God. 
When her husband was away from home, which hap- 
pened frequently on account of his profession of arms, 
she led the simplest life possible, cutting herself off 
from company as much as she could and busying her- 
self about her home duties and the care of her soul. 
Once, when some of her friends reproached her dur- 
ing the absence of her husband for dressing so plainly, 
she replied, "The eyes which I must please are a hun- 
dred leagues from here." Yet with all this fervor of 
soul, she was a happy wife and mother, — all the hap- 
pier, indeed, because she gave her greatest love to God. 

But the worldly happiness was about to end. God 
had chosen her to do a great work in His Church, and 
to prepare her for it He required that she should 
suffer in her dearest affections. He took from her 
the husband she loved so dearly. One day he was 
out hunting, and his companion, mistaking him for a 
deer, shot him. He survived the accident nine days, 
during which time he prepared his soul to meet His 
God, and showed himself a good Christian, the worthy 
husband of a great woman. 

Jane was thus left a widow at the age of twenty- 
eight, with four small children, one son and three 
daughters. She had six children in all, but two had 

[170] 



ROYAL LADIES 

died in infancy. She was heart-broken over the loss 
of the Baron, but she wasted no time in fruitless griev- 
ing. She recognized the hand of God even in this 
greatest affliction that could come to a happy wife. 
She felt God drawing her closer to Him, and so she 
made a vow of chastity, and led a life of true widow- 
hood, indeed, giving her rich clothes to the poor, and 
devoting herself to a life of penance and prayer. She 
would have liked then to enter religion, but her duties 
as mother kept her in the world as yet. For the sake 
of the children she was obliged to live with her father- 
in-law for seven years, during which she endured a 
species of martyrdom. 

In the Lent of 1604 she went to visit her father at 
Dijon. There she met the great Francis de Sales, 
whom she chose as her director. At once he saw in her 
the special marks of sanctity. As he said of her : "In 
Madame de Chantal I have found the perfect woman 
whom Solomon had difficulty in finding in Jerusalem." 
And a perfect woman and mother she was. Her life 
was one long prayer, yet she never neglected her fam- 
ily duties on that account. As those of her household 
used to say, "Madame prays always, yet is never 
troublesome to anybody." 

Every day she rose at five o'clock and made an 
hour's meditation; then she called her children and 
took them to Mass. She prayed with them morning 
and night, and instructed them in their catechism. 
Her first aim was to build up the Kingdom of God in 
their souls. And all the time she was living the life 

[171] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of a religious, even wearing the hair shirt. With a 
life of prayer went the life of charity. The poor and 
the sick found in her their best friend. 

Leading such a life, it was no wonder that she de- 
sired to enter a more perfect state and dedicate her- 
self to God in religion. Finally she obtained the con- 
sent of St. Francis for this, and having provided for 
the future of her children, she at length began the 
work of establishing the Congregation of the Visita- 
tion. It was not without a struggle that she was able 
to accomplish this. Many considered that she was a 
fool and wanting in motherly love to think of cutting 
herself from her children. On the very day that she 
left home her little son, thinking to keep her with him, 
threw himself weeping across the threshold to bar her 
way. She was overcome with grief; but she stepped 
over his body and then came back to console him. 
"Can the tears of a child shake your resolution?" 
asked a priest who had witnessed the affecting scene. 
"Oh, no/' she replied; "but, after all, I am a mother." 
She was, indeed, a mother, but one who knew that 
God had the first demand upon her. 

No need to enter into the history of the Order 
which she was raised up to establish. It prospered 
greatly because of the admirable character and the 
sanctity of this woman who ruled its destinies. 

But her life as a religious was not without its 
trials. She had her temptations — violent ones that 
continued almost to the time of her death. Even with 
all the cares of her Congregation, she never forgot 

[172] 



ROYAL LADIES 

her duties as mother. She kept up her interest in her 
children, knowing that nothing could relieve her of 
that duty. 

And at last, after a long life of service to God and 
her neighbor, she died in 1641, at the age of sixty-nine. 
Her epitaph might well be her own words : "After all, 
I am a mother" — a great mother because she was a 
great saint. 

Endless is the list of these holy women of noble 
blood who attained, a life of sanctity. Yet closely 
allied to them are others who, though not specially 
mentioned in the Church's roll of honor, deserve con- 
sideration for their great service to the Church. Such 
a woman was the Duchess of Acquillon, niece of the 
famous Cardinal Richelieu. She was born in 1604, 
and had married, at the age of sixteen, the Marquis 
of Combalet. Two years later he was killed at the 
siege of Montpellier, and the saddened young widow 
entered the Carmelite Order. When her uncle, Riche- 
lieu, was made premier of Louis XIII she had to come 
and live with him, and was made lady of the bed- 
chamber to Queen Marie de Medici. She now pre- 
sided over the Cardinal's house, even while her heart 
was in the convent. But she tried to live the life of a 
religious as much as possible, having no love for the 
vanity of the world and the high place to which she 
had been elevated. So great was her charity that she 
was known as "the great Christian" and "the heroic 
woman." Her charities were innumerable. She 
founded or helped every good work possible. The 

[173] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Seminary of St. Sulpice, the foreign missions, hos- 
pitals, convents — all the religious houses of Paris 
regarded her as their benefactress. She had a high 
regard for St. Vincent de Paul, and was the very soul 
of his work. She helped the missions in China, but 
more than all she loved the missions in Canada. The 
Hotel-Dieu at Quebec was erected at her expense, and 
*'t was at her request that Richelieu sent the Jesuits 
and Ursulines to Canada. In a word, charity domi- 
nated her life. Princes of the royal blood sought to 
marry her, but she preferred to remain a widow and 
to lead her life of charity. 

When Richelieu died he made her his heiress and 
she devoted all her great fortune to the interests of 
charity. Well was she called "the Almoner of God." 
When she died in 1675, at tne a & e °f seventy-one, the 
Church of France sustained a great loss. 

Such were some of the noble women who served the 
Church, — noble not only by blood, but more than all 
by their deeds. They could have pleaded their posi- 
tion, their dignity, their care for things of state, as 
reasons for leading a worldly life. Yet their greatest 
glory was to be humble wives, humble widows, hum- 
ble servants of the poor, humble servants of God. 
Their lives are well described in the picture which 
Spenser paints of the Matron in his Faerie Queene: 

"Whose only joy was to relieve the needes ' 

Of wretched soules, and helpe the helplesse pore. 
All night she spent in bidding of her bedes, 
And all the day in doing good and godly deedes." 
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ROYAL LADIES 

Surely one of the greatest glories of Catholic wom- 
anhood, something in which every Catholic wife and 
mother can take pride, are these noble wives and 
mothers who, amid all their dignities, showed a great 
example of poverty in spirit. What a reproach are 
their lives to those who set aside their devotions, their 
very salvation, in the vain pursuit of the unreal glory 
of life! 



[1751 



ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 
(1451-1504) 

THE reign of Isabella of Castile is of the utmost 
importance in the history of Spain, and indeed 
of the whole world. It saw Spain, which from the 
time of the invasion of the Saracens in the eighth cen- 
tury had been divided into numberless small states, 
now made one great nation. It saw that nation ex- 
tended by the discoveries in the New World by the 
immortal Columbus, who owes so much of his glory 
to the patriotism and faith of Isabella; and with the 
union of states it saw the domestic institutions of 
Spain and its literature moulded into what is prac- 
tically their present form. For these reasons alone 
Isabella would be a figure of world-history. Yet it 
is not as a great ruler that we would view her, but as 
a great woman, a great wife and mother, a great soul, 
who well deserved the title which has become a very 
part of her name — Isabella the Catholic. 

She was born in 145 1, the daughter of John II of 
Castile and his second wife, Isabella of Portugal. He 
was an intellectual man who wrote and spoke Latin, 
and even composed verses; it was a time of literary 
activity in Castile, and it had its lasting influence on 

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ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

the young Isabella. Castile always had pre-eminence 
among the states of Spain ; and even when the various 
states were consolidated into one, the capital of Castile 
became the capital of the new kingdom, and its lan- 
guage that of the court and the people. Spain was 
always par excellence the land of chivalry; and pa- 
triotism, religion, and a proud sense of independence 
were traits of the Castilians even in those days. 

But when Isabella was born there was little pros- 
pect that she would ever rule as queen. She had two 
brothers who were older than she — Henry, her step- 
brother, and Alfonso, her full brother. It was Henry 
that succeeded to the throne on the death of his father. 
Isabella was three years of age at the time, and had 
been taken by her mother, a woman of noble charac- 
ter, from whom Isabella inherited her many striking 
virtues, to live in the little town of Arevalo, where 
she was brought up in seclusion, far from the court, 
which during the reign of her brother Henry was a 
licentious one. Her mother was filled with piety, and 
it was her first care to train Isabella in practical piety, 
to fill her with that spirit of religion which was the 
most evident characteristic of her reign as queen. 

When Henry's daughter Joanna was born, Isabella 
and her brother Alfonso were brought back to court 
from their retirement, this being a move of Henry's 
to prevent the attempt of any faction to aspire to the 
throne on their behalf, on account of the belief then 
prevalent that Joanna was not really his own daughter 
and consequently not the legitimate heir to the crown. 

[i77] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

It was a licentious, frivolous court, as we have said, 
but the little Isabella had been well grounded in piety, 
and her life was kept pure amid the bad examples ever 
before her eyes. 

It was no wonder that she had many suitors. She 
was very beautiful, with a clear, fresh complexion, 
light blue eyes, auburn hair inclining to red, a style 
rare in Spain, and of great dignity of bearing. But, 
more than that, she was closely allied to the crown, 
and therefore considered a great catch. At first her 
hand was sought for the very Ferdinand to whom she 
was later married, but for reasons of state that match 
was set aside, and then she was betrothed to Ferdi- 
nand's brother Carlos, the heir-apparent to the throne 
of Aragon, who was persecuted by his father and his 
stepmother, and died in his prime, supposedly of poi- 
son administered to him. 

After the death of Carlos, Isabella was betrothed 
to Alfonso of Portugal, a man many years older than 
herself, for which reason she bitterly protested against 
the proposed marriage. Henry was now in danger of 
losing his throne, and in order to strengthen himself 
politically, caring little about her personal choice in 
the matter of choosing a husband, he arranged a mar- 
riage between her and the grand master of the Order 
of Calatrava. Isabella protested against this arrange- 
ment also, but Henry was bound that she should be 
sacrificed for his own interests. She detested the man 
chosen for her, for he was inferior to her in birth and 
was notorious for his evil manner of life. When she 

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ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

heard that the King was insistent she kept to her 
room, refused to eat or sleep, and prayed unceasingly 
to God to preserve her from such a marriage. She 
was saved from the disgrace of this merely political 
and unworthy union by the sudden death of the grand 
master, who was supposed to have met his untimely 
end by poison at the hands of some of his enemies. 

His death put an end to all hopes of conciliation of 
the two factions. War broke out between Henry and 
the confederates, who had declared him dethroned 
and Alfonso king in his stead. But Alfonso died at 
the age of fifteen, being also poisoned, it was sup- 
posed; and now the eyes of the confederates were 
turned to the young Isabella, then living at the short- 
lived court of her brother Alfonso, to which she had 
come out of disgust at the corruption prevalent in 
Henry's court. When Alfonso died she retired to 
the monastery of Avila, and there she was visited 
by the confederates, who begged her to let them pro- 
claim her Queen of Castile. But she refused, reply- 
ing that while her brother Henry lived no one else 
had a right to the crown ; and, moreover, she declared 
that the country had been divided long enough by fac- 
tions, and that the death of Alfonso should be inter- 
preted as the expression of the will of Heaven to show 
its disapproval of the cause of the confederates. 

She expressed herself as willing to effect a recon- 
ciliation between the two parties and to work with 
her brother the King for the removal of abuses in the 
government. But nothing could move her to take a 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

throne to which she felt she had no right; and even 
when the confederates, disregarding her wishes, pro- 
claimed her Queen of Castile, she refused to accept 
the dignity, which might well have turned any girl's 
head. As the result of her persistence, which amazed 
everybody to think that any woman would refuse a 
kingdom, matters were finally arranged peaceably, 
one of the conditions being that Isabella should be 
recognized as heir to the crowns of Castile and Leon, 
and that she should not be forced to marry against 
her own choice. Such magnanimity is rare in the his- 
tory of the world, but, knowing the character of Isa- 
bella as we do, any other course would have been im- 
possible to her. 

Now that she was heiress to a great throne, she was 
again sought by many suitors. But she refused them 
all. Her heart was turned towards Ferdinand, who 
was related to her, both being descended from the 
same great-grandfather. There were many reasons, 
political, geographical, racial, and others, to make 
such a union desirable; but what decided her more 
than anything else, perhaps, was the fact that the 
voting Ferdinand was handsome and in every way an 
excellent prince, a fit husband for any princess. 

Like Isabella, when he was born there had been little 
prospect that he would ever be King of Aragon. His 
stepbrother, Carlos, was the heir-apparent, but, as we 
have said, met an untimely death, and so cleared the 
way for Ferdinand. King Henry, however, was not 
in favor of the match with Ferdinand, and even 

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ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

threatened to have Isabella imprisoned in the royal 
fortress at Madrid if she did not change her mind. 
And this would have been done, only the common peo- 
ple were very much in favor of the marriage with 
Ferdinand, regarding it as the most desirable union 
for every reason. Isabella now showed her strength 
of character, took matters into her own hands, and 
gave her consent to the marriage with the man she 
loved. She fled to Valladolid from fear of her ene- 
mies, who were determined to stop the wedding at 
any cost ; and there she was joined by her future hus- 
band, who had come thither in disguise. He was at 
the time eighteen years of age, a year younger than 
his bride, a handsome prince, bronzed by his life in 
the camp. No prince ever received a greater treasure. 
She was, says one of her household, "the handsomest 
lady whom I ever beheld, and the most gracious in 
her manners." She was dignified and modest, even 
reserved. And so these two lovers were married, a 
marriage that meant so much to Spain and to the 
whole world. Yet at the time they were so poor that 
they had to borrow money to defray the expenses of 
the ceremony! 

This poverty of the young couple continued for 
some time, and there were occasions when they were 
hardly able to meet the expenses of the table. The 
reason was that Henry and his confederates objected 
to the succession of Isabella. They desired that his 
daughter, Joanna, should succeed him. Marriages 
were arranged between Joanna and princes of dif- 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ferent nations, but nothing came of any of them, since 
the prospective husbands were afraid of a union that 
promised a civil war. So Isabella grew in power. It 
was her own character more than anything else that 
contributed to strengthen her cause. Her little court 
was a great contrast to the frivolous, luxurious one of 
her brother. And the thinking people knew that her 
rule would be more desirable than that of her rival. 

And then, in 1474, Henry died. It was the end of 
a reign of weakness. Castile in his time had been dis- 
membered by factions, her revenues squandered till 
the treasury was bankrupt, and public and private 
morals had come to degradation. Never since the 
time of the Saracen invasion had the condition of the 
kingdom been so bad. And in the time of this dark- 
ness the sun of the young Queen Isabella began to 
shine. In her rule one has little difficulty in discover- 
ing the providence of God. 

Isabella succeeded to the throne by the right that 
she had been recognized by the Legislature. And so 
she was proclaimed queen in the city of Segovia, 
where she then resided, with simple but magnificent 
ceremonies in the public square, after which she went 
with a great procession to the cathedral, where a Te 
Deum was chanted. She prostrated herself before 
the high altar to thank God for the past and to invoke 
His protection for the future. 

Her succession was not without its troubles. The 
King of Portugal thought it a good chance to gain 
new power by espousing the cause of Henry's daugh- 

[182] 



ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

ter, Joanna, his niece, and so led an army against Cas- 
tile. It was a surprise to Isabella, but historians tell 
us that she acquitted herself well during this her first 
care of state, sometimes sitting up all night to dictate 
despatches, and even making long journeys on horse- 
back. We do not need to enter into details of the 
War of the Succession. After the first great battle, 
which was won by her soldiers, she ordered a proces- 
sion to the Church of St. Paul, in the suburbs of the 
city of Tordesillas, where she was then staying, and 
she herself joined in it, walking barefoot as a pilgrim, 
and thanking God for the victory He had given her 
arms. The effect was that in a little more than six 
months the whole kingdom practically acknowledged 
the supremacy of Ferdinand and Isabella. But the 
war broke out again, and lasted in all four years, end- 
ing in complete victory for Isabella. Her niece Jo- 
anna, her rival for the throne, finally withdrew into 
a monastery and consecrated herself to the service 
of religion. Shortly after this the old King of Ara- 
gon died in 1479, and the crown came to Ferdinand. 
And so Castile and Aragon, which had been sepa- 
rated for more than four centuries, were now re- 
united forever, and the foundations laid of the king- 
dom which for a time was to overshadow every other 
European monarchy. 

As soon as Isabella was on her throne, she set to 
work to be a real queen. She was filled with the spirit 
of justice, and justice she gave to all her subjects, 
rich and poor alike. She went from city to city, re- 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

forming abuses, and sat on the judgment-seat to hear 
all the cases brought before her. She was a fearless 
woman, and when occasion required rode with her re- 
tainers to put down the petty rebellions that still arose 
from time to time. The country, which had been in- 
fested with robbers in the previous reign, was soon rid 
of them by her efforts. It was the same in other 
things. She was always looking after the interests of 
her subjects. It could hardly be believed, historians 
tell us, that in a few short years so many changes 
could be effected. Yet all these changes were due to 
the character of the woman who was more than all 
else a great, practical Catholic. 

One of the greatest accomplishments under her 
reign was the destruction of the Moslem power in 
Granada. In that war we see her real character. She 
was solicitous for all that concerned the welfare of 
her people, even visiting the camp in person to en- 
courage the soldiers and to relieve their necessities. 
She had a large number of tents reserved for the sick 
and the wounded, which were called the "Queen's hos- 
pitals" and which she herself supported. This is the 
first record in history of a regular camp hospital. 
Her whole soul was in this war, not from a desire 
for conquest, but to replace the crescent by the Cross 
and to retrieve for Christianity the beautiful domain 
it had lost long before. And so great was her own 
enthusiasm that it won her that of the people. It was 
a war that appealed to the best instincts of a people 
always noted for chivalry. The noblest of the youths 

[184] 



ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

of Spain rushed to the standard to serve their coun- 
try and their religion. It was a veritable Crusade, 
and the inspiration of all was Isabella. 

The history of the siege of Baza in the campaign 
against Granada shows clearly her influence. It was 
she who renewed the courage of the leaders. She pro- 
cured all the supplies, constructed the roads, took 
charge of the sick, and furnished the sums necessary 
for the conduct of the war. When the hearts of the 
soldiers were growing weak, she visited the camp to 
cheer them and fill them with some of her own energy. 
It was easily done, for the attachment to her was uni- 
versal. They looked to her as to a superior being, and 
she held their hearts in her hands. And so, on the 
second of January, 1492, the submission of Granada 
was made, after having been a Moslem kingdom for 
nearly eight hundred years. 

But that year was famous for another event that 
has given more glory to Isabella than all the other 
events of her great reign — the discovery of America. 
We would be unable to magnify too much the place 
which Isabella holds in the discovery of America. Co- 
lumbus had come to the court of Spain in 1484. It 
was hardly a propitious time. Ferdinand and Isabella 
were then engaged in the war against the Moors, and 
all their resources were used in that undertaking. And 
though they were interested in nautical enterprises, as 
was Portugal, it was more important for them to press 
the war than to take chances with a possible discov- 
ery. And while Columbus had the best of recommen- 

[185] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

dations, while he had a good friend in Isabella's for- 
mer confessor, Father Juan Perez, the sovereigns could 
not arrive at any decision until the war was over. 

Meanwhile Columbus stayed in Spain, serving in 
the army, and all the while considered highly by the 
King and Queen and helped by them. 

Worn out by waiting, he at last determined to leave 
Spain and offer his services to France. But on the 
way he was stopped by Juan Perez and brought by 
him to Santa Fe, where the court then was previous 
to the fall of Granada. Columbus and his friends so 
pleaded his cause that even while Ferdinand refused 
to give any sanction to the plan, Isabella, to whom 
Columbus appealed not only on the score that it would 
bring wealth to Spain, but would also extend the Gos- 
pel, decided to aid him. 

"I will assume the undertaking," she said, "for 
my own crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my 
jewels to defray the expenses of it, if the funds in 
the treasury shall be found inadequate." It was not 
necessary to pledge the jewels, however, as funds were 
advanced from the Aragonese revenues, though all 
the charges of the expedition were made to Castile. 
"This," says Washington Irving, "was the proudest 
moment in the life of Isabella; it stamped her re- 
nown forever as the patroness of the discovery of the 
New World." 

The great glory, of course, belongs to Columbus 
of entertaining and carrying out an enterprise which 
no one else had the hardihood even to conceive. Yet 

[186] 



ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

we must not ignore the part of Isabella. She was 
the only sovereign of the time that gave countenance 
to the project. And when she gave her word to Co- 
lumbus she remained ever after his steadfast friend, 
shielding him against his enemies, believing in him^ 
and helping him financially. She was enthusiastic 
about the work, for she believed that she had been 
raised up at this time to spread the light of the faith 
into unknown lands. Indeed, one can see the provi- 
dence of God in raising up Columbus and Isabella at 
the same time. 

When Columbus returned and announced his discov- 
eries the sovereigns sank to their knees, raised their 
clasped hands to heaven, and with eyes filled with 
tears gave thanks to God. When he set forth on his 
second voyage the most explicit directions were given 
him by Isabella as to the conversion of the heathen. 
She ordered him to treat them well and lovingly, to 
give them presents which she and Ferdinand sent them, 
and to punish any Spaniard that dared molest them. 
The paramount thing to Isabella was the civilization 
and conversion of her new subjects, for she beheld 
them as having been committed to her by Heaven. So 
during all her life she fought against the enslaving of 
even one of them. All this was due to the kind heart 
of Isabella as well as to her zeal for the faith. 

And with that thought there was also the zeal for 
the welfare of her country. Even from a worldly 
point of view, she was a wise ruler. Nothing was 
foreign to her so long as it concerned the advancement 

[187] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of her people. So it is that we see her taking a lively- 
interest in the cultivation of letters. Her father's 
reign had given great promise in literature. But dur- 
ing that of his son there had been no thought for such 
tame amusement. When Isabella came to the throne 
she aimed to increase the love of literature. She her- 
self, in those years when she had led a life of retire- 
ment with her mother after the death of her father, had 
the chance to cultivate her mind. She had learned 
several modern languages and could write in her own 
with great elegance. 

We are told that when she came to the throne she 
did not know Latin, which was then the language of 
diplomacy. But she set herself to learn it immediately, 
and soon became as proficient in that as in other lan- 
guages. She collected books and soon had a library 
which may justly be called fine for the times. She 
took great pains, too, in the instruction of her chil- 
dren, and had for them the best masters obtainable, so 
much so that the acquirements of her daughters created 
surprise even among the learned. The same care she 
exercised with the young nobility. She delighted in 
gathering them about her and urging them to study. It 
was a complete reform for the nobles, who previously 
had considered learning as beneath their notice. But 
she soon made them understand that with her intellect 
was to count more than blood, and that if they hoped 
for any advance at her hands they must cultivate their 

minds. Soon there was a real enthusiasm for learn- 

[188] 



ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

ing, and it was no strange thing to find women lectur- 
ing in the great universities. 

It is beyond our scope to give a lengthy narration 
of the literary achievements of Isabella's reign. Suf- 
fice it to say that in every branch there was a progress 
that was astounding. And all was due to the enthu- 
siasm of this one woman. 

The King and Queen of Spain were successful not 
only in arms, but also in the matrimonial alliances 
they made for their children, although in several cases 
it was but a prelude to sorrow. They had one son 
and four daughters, whom they educated thoroughly, 
and who repaid them by their fine characters. They 
inherited the virtues of Isabella. The eldest daughter, 
the Princess Isabella, was married to Alfonso, the heir 
to the throne of Portugal, but he died soon after, and 
the broken-hearted widow returned to Spain and de- 
voted herself to religion and works of charity, refus- 
ing many brilliant offers of marriage. She was after- 
wards married to Emmanuel of Portugal. 

Isabella's son, Prince John, was married to the 
Princess Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Maxi- 
milian, and her daughter Joanna was married to Max- 
imilian's son Philip. Katharine, immortal in history* 
as Katharine of Aragon, was married to Prince Ar- 
thur of England, and, after his death, to Henry, later 
Henry VIII. Happily, Isabella was spared the knowl- 
edge of her daughter Katharine's repudiation. But, 
somehow, Katharine in her woes reminds us, by her 

[189] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

fine spirit of faith, of the mother from whom she 
inherited her genuine womanliness. 

In the midst of the rejoicings at having settled her 
children so well, there came sadness. Prince John 
died at the age of twenty, a terrible blow to the 
mother who so loved him. Ferdinand had gone to see 
him in his illness, and tried to break the news gently 
to Isabella, for he feared the effect the shock would 
have upon her. But, like a good Christian, she re- 
ceived the tidings religiously, with resignation to the 
will of God even while the heart within her was 
crushed. Great as this affliction was, a greater soon 
came in the death of the Queen of Portugal, her be- 
loved daughter Isabella, who had always been her 
bosom friend as well as daughter. The grieving 
mother still devoted herself to her duties. Externally 
she was calm, but her health gradually sank beneath 
the weight of woe. Not only did death come to her 
loved ones, but a greater affliction came when she real- 
ized that her daughter Joanna was insane. Yet no 
grief blunted the energy of her mind. She was not 
only a mother: she was a queen, and she had duties 
as queen to her people with which her personal sorrow 
should not interfere. And so she sacrificed her feel- 
ings to her duty as ruler. Her character was so 
great that she rose triumphant over every ill, while 
her truly religious spirit made her realize that 
the sorrows of this world, like its joys, are but pass- 
ing. 

It was this great character that made her age the 
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ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

golden age of Spain. It is this same character that 
has led even hostile critics to regard her as one of 
the greatest rulers of all time. As Irving sums it up : 
"Contemporary writers have been enthusiastic in their 
descriptions of Isabella, but time has sanctioned their 
eulogies. She is one of the purest and most beautiful 
characters in the pages of history." 

The year 1504 witnessed the death of Isabella. For 
some time her health had been failing; indeed, she was 
never careful about her health when duty demanded 
her presence. We have seen her, even when she was 
about to become a mother, riding out to the field of 
battle in order to stir her soldiers to fight for her 
cause. To this activity of body there was added a 
ceaseless activity of mind. She had the cares of state, 
and she attended to them as only a great statesman 
could. And with all that there came the sorrows 
which are the portion of a mother. Some of her 
children died ; the others married and went to live far 
from her. It is the lot of queens to be separated from 
their children. But Isabella, the great queen, was also 
the great mother. No mother ever took more interest 
in her children; no mother ever loved her children 
more, or was loved more in return by them. For that 
reason she felt in a special manner the blow of the 
death of her daughter Isabella, from which she never 
wholly recovered. Yet the combined sorrows did not 
break her spirit. She knew to whom she would go in 
her sorrow. To God she went, and, as ever, put her 
trust in Him. Pious as she always was, she now be- 

[191] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

came more pious, though all the time her heart was 
sick and weary of the world. 

The affliction which came to her daughter Joanna 
had brought only abuse from her husband Philip. 
When the news of this came to Ferdinand and Isabella 
both were sorely afflicted. It so affected Ferdinand 
that he became ill. So also with Isabella, and to this 
was added her worry over Ferdinand's condition. But 
he recovered and she failed. It was not only worry 
over the condition of her beloved daughter, but also 
over her beloved Castile, for which she had labored 
so hard and which now, when she should be gone, was 
to suffer for lack of a fit ruler. 

Most of each day in those declining months she had 
to lie down, but even in that position she attended 
to the business of state despite her mortal malady. It 
is interesting to note a letter written at this time by 
her faithful follower, Peter Martyr. 

"You ask me," he writes, "respecting the state of 
the Queen's health. We sit sorrowful in the palace 
all day long, tremblingly waiting the hour when re- 
ligion and virtue shall quit the earth with her. Let us 
pray that we may be permitted to follow hereafter 
where she is soon to go. She so far transcends all 
human excellence, that there is scarcely anything of 
mortality about her. She can hardly be said to die, 
but to pass into a nobler existence, which should rather 
excite our envy than our sorrow. She leaves the world 
filled with her renown, and she goes to enjoy life 
eternal with her God in heaven." 

[192] 



ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

It was at this time that Isabella made her famous 
will. First of all she provided for her burial, order- 
ing that her remains be transported to Granada to 
the Franciscan monastery of Santa Isabella in the Al- 
hambra, and there placed in a low and humble sepulchre 
with only a plain inscription. "But," she added, 
"should the King, my lord, prefer a sepulchre in some 
other place, then my will is that my body be there 
transported and laid by his side; that the union we 
have enjoyed in this world, and, through the mercy 
of God, may hope again for our souls in heaven, may 
be represented by our bodies in the earth." She then 
ordered that her funeral be as simple as possible, and 
that what was saved by this economy be given to the 
poor. This she did not only out of her own simplic- 
ity and humility, but also to set an example to her 
subjects, who were accustomed to extravagance in fu- 
nerals. 

She then made bequests to charities, among others 
settling marriage portions on poor girls, and also 
money for the redemption of Christian captives in 
Barbary. Then she settled the crown of Castile on 
her daughter Joanna, and urged her and her husband 
to live with the same conjugal harmony that had al- 
ways existed between her and Ferdinand, and urged 
them also to look after the welfare of their subjects. 
Finally she said: "I beseech the King, my lord, that 
he will accept all my jewels, or such as he shall se- 
lect, so that, seeing them, he may be reminded of the 
singular love I always bore him while living, and that 

[193] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

I am now waiting for him in a better world ; by which 
remembrance he may be encouraged to live the more 
justly and holily in this." In a codicil to the will she 
urged her successors to hasten the work of converting 
and civilizing the poor Indians, to treat them kindly, 
and to repair any wrongs they might have suffered. 

When this work of disposition was done, she gave 
herself over to the care of her soul. "Do not weep 
for me," she said to those at her bedside, who were 
afflicted at the thought of losing her, "nor waste 
your time in fruitless prayers for my recovery, but 
pray rather for the salvation of my soul." 

And so, having received the last sacraments, she 
died November 26, 1504, aged fifty-four, and in the 
thirtieth year of her reign. "My hand," says Peter 
Martyr, "falls powerless by my side for very sorrow. 
The world has lost its noblest ornament — a loss to 
be deplored not only by Spain, which she has so long 
carried forward in the career of glory, but by every 
nation in Christendom; for she was the mirror of 
every virtue, the shield of the innocent, and an aveng- 
ing sword to the wicked. I know none of her sex, in 
ancient or modern times, who in my judgment is at 
all worthy to be named with this incomparable 
woman." 

On the news of her death, Columbus wrote to his 
son Diego : "A memorial for thee, my dear son Diego, 
of what is at present to be done. The principal thing 
is to commend affectionately, and with great devotion, 
the soul of the Queen our sovereign to God. Her life 

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ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC 

was always Catholic and holy, and prompt to all things 
in His holy service; for this reason we may rest as- 
sured that she is received into His glory, and beyond 
the care of this rough and weary world. The next 
thing is to watch and labor in all matters for the 
service of our sovereign the King, and to endeavor 
to alleviate his grief." 

So passed away Isabella the Catholic, one of the 
greatest rulers that ever lived, a great ruler because 
she was a great Catholic. She was every inch a 
queen, but withal she had great simplicity of char- 
acter. She lived frugally ; she spun and sewed all the 
clothes her children wore, and it was said that she even 
mended the King's doublet seven times. She herself 
dressed simply, except on state occasions, and even 
gave away her jewels and her fine clothes to her 
friends. She was a big-hearted woman. There was 
nothing petty in her make-up. Once a friend, always 
a friend, as she proved in her dealings with Columbus. 

But her chief characteristic was her piety. As Pres- 
cott says: "It shone forth from the very depths of 
her soul with a heavenly radiance which illuminated 
her whole character." It was the piety which had 
been implanted in her heart by her good mother. With 
all the cares of state — and one gets some idea of them 
when one considers all that she accomplished for 
Spain — she saw to it that she had plenty of time to 
give to prayer. She said her office every day like 
a nun. She built hospitals and churches, and endowed 
monasteries; in a word, she did all she could for the 

[195] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Church and for the sanctification of her own soul. 
She had all the strength of a man and all the gentle 
piety of a woman. No wonder that when she died it 
was amid the cries of woe of her people. 

A great queen, indeed, a great wife, a great mother, 
and all this because she was first of all a great Cath- 
olic — Isabella the Catholic. 



1 196] 



MARGARET ROPER 
(1505-1544) 

WHEN the Spirit of God would describe the 
ideal, the valiant woman, it uses these beau- 
tiful words : "The heart of her husband trusteth in 
her. . . . She will render him good, and not evil, all 
the days of her life. . . . She hath opened her hand 
to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor. 
* . . She hath opened her mouth to wisdom, and the 
law of clemency is on her tongue. . . . She hath 
looked well to the paths of her house, and hath not 
eaten her bread idle. Her children rose up and called 
her blessed ; her husband, and he praised her. Many 
daughters have gathered together riches: thou hast 
surpassed them all." (Proverbs xxxi.) 

To read these words is to read the epitaph of Mis- 
tress Margaret Roper, the gentle lady, the learned 
scholar, the charitable Christian, the noble daughter 
of a noble father, the ideal wife and mother. If Sir 
Thomas More stands for glorious Catholic manhood, 
his daughter Margaret, who was so like him in many 
ways, stands for glorious Catholic womanhood. It 
is a story filled with sadness; yet, too, with that joy 
that comes only from the service of God. To tell the 

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story of Margaret, it is necessary to tell the story of 
her father. Their lives were intimately bound to- 
gether; she was his favorite daughter, and indeed re- 
sembled him closely both physically and mentally,. 

Sir Thomas More, now Blessed Thomas More, was 
born on February 7, 1478, the eldest son of John 
More, a gentleman who afterwards, in the time of 
Henry VIII, was a judge on the King's Bench. It 
was a family, as More used to say, "not illustrious, 
but honourable." More loved his father dearly, whom 
he called, "a man, courteous, affable, innocent, gentle, 
merciful, just, and uncorrupted." As he loved his 
father, so Margaret in turn loved him. It was a fam- 
ily of affectionate nature. 

The Mores in the beginning were not rich. John 
More at first was but a poor lawyer, so that for his 
early education the young Thomas was sent to a free 
school. From there he was transferred to the house 
of Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, as in 
those days the houses of ecclesiastics were schools of 
learning and good breeding for the sons of the gentry 
and even the higher nobility. The Cardinal, a learned 
and good man, took a great interest in the young 
Thomas, and prophesied remarkable things for him. 
It was through him that the lad was sent to the 
University of Oxford in 1492, the year of the dis- 
covery of America. 

More was there two years, studying hard, full of 
ambition, learning everything he could, even to play 
on the viol and the flute, enjoying a joke as few en- 

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MARGARET ROPER 

joyed one. From Oxford he passed to New Inn, and 
there studied law, becoming proficient in that branch, 
and all the while devoting his spare time to other 
studies, even to the study of theology. It was not 
surprising that a youth so piously inclined thought 
of becoming a priest. He even went to the Carthu- 
sians to try his vocation, but at last, by the advice of 
his confessor, he decided to stay in the world. 

So at the age of twenty-six he decided to take a 
wife. He was a handsome, intelligent, refined youth; 
but there was little romance in his courtship. More, 
while visiting the home of a man named Colt who had 
three daughters, fell in love with the second eldest, 
and determined to marry her ; but then, as he thought 
that the eldest would take it ill if her younger sister 
were married before her, he turned about and asked 
the eldest to marry him. Not very romantic, but it 
proved one of the happiest of marriages. Of this 
union four children were born — Margaret, Cecily, 
Elizabeth, and John. Margaret was born in 1505. 

The happiness of the More family was short-lived. 
The young wife died six years after marriage, leaving 
her husband with four small children to care for. It 
was, no doubt, the thought of the welfare of these 
children that induced More to marry again. His sec- 
ond wife was a widow with one daughter, Mrs. Alice 
Middleton, seven years older than himself. He had 
no children by the second wife. But they were ex- 
tremely happy together, and though she had the repu- 
tation of being close in money matters and feared that 

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her husband would beggar himself and his family by 
his great charity, she proved to be an admirable 
mother for his children. It was one of the happiest 
families that ever lived. 

More himself was ever affable and courteous, witty, 
full of jokes and banter, especially with the women- 
folk; and he was kind to animals, of which he had a 
great many as pets. He arose at two o'clock in the 
morning, studied and prayed till seven. Every morn- 
ing of his life he heard Mass. There is a story that 
one day he was at Mass when the King sent for him ; 
but More would not come. A second and a third time, 
the King summoned him, but he would not go till the 
Mass was ended, saying that he was paying court to 
a greater and better Lord, and must first perform 
that duty. He made many pilgrimages on foot, some- 
times walking seven miles to a shrine. He loved 
prayer, and whenever he entered on a new office or 
undertook a difficult business, he received Holy Com- 
munion. Yet, while exhibiting such great and unaf- 
fected piety, he was always of a joyous character, 
happy and prosperous, enjoying life to the full even 
while he was detached from the world, a truly model 
married man. No wonder his kind disposition domi- 
nated the family. All the relatives lived together in 
the great house which he had built — More and his 
wife and children, his father and his father's third 
wife, his daughter Margaret and her husband, and 
later on, when the other children were married, their 
families, too. More actually poured out his affection 

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MARGARET ROPER 

upon his children. He personally looked after their 
education, and imparted to them so much learning that 
their reputation was known all over Europe. 

But though he loved all his children, he made a 
special favorite of his daughter Margaret — his Meg. 
She was always his confidante, always the one to whom 
he told his troubles. Perhaps it was because she was 
so like him in character, and because she responded so 
readily to his teaching. More was a firm believer in 
the education of woman, at a time when little atten- 
tion was paid to it. He set his daughters heavy tasks 
in learning, supervised their education himself, and 
while he was away from home on affairs of state when 
he became Lord Chancellor, wrote to them and had 
them write to him so that he might watch their im- 
provement. His first duty was to his children; noth- 
ing could take the place of that. And it was always 
good advice he gave to them, and to the man he 
had engaged as their tutor. In one of his letters to 
the tutor he writes as follows : "I have often begged 
not you only, who out of your affection for my chil- 
dren would do it of your own accord, nor my wife, 
who is sufficiently urged by her maternal love for 
them, which has been proved to me in so many ways, 
but all my friends, to warn my children to avoid 
the precipices of pride and haughtiness, and to walk 
in the pleasant meadows of modesty; not to be daz- 
zled at the sight of gold; not to lament that they do 
not possess what they erroneously admire in others; 
not to think more of themselves for gaudy trappings, 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

nor less for the want of them; neither to deform the 
beauty that nature has given them by neglect, nor to 
try to heighten it by artifice ; to put virtue in the first 
place, learning in the second, and in their studies to 
esteem most whatever may teach them piety towards 
God, charity to all, and modesty and Christian humil- 
ity in themselves. By such means they will receive 
from God the reward of an innocent life, and in the 
assured expectation of it will view death without 
horror, and meanwhile, possessing solid joy, will 
neither be puffed up by the empty praise of men nor 
dejected by evil tongues." 

No wonder that such watchfulness over his family 
produced good results. All of More's children grew 
up learned and of fine character. The great scholar, 
Erasmus, who was the dear friend of More, expressed 
his amazement that the girls could write such fine 
Latin. But while More was pleased at this, it de- 
lighted him more to know that they were pious. As an 
instance of what good reason he had to rejoice in their 
learning, it is related that in 1529 the fame of these 
girls had so spread through Europe by the talk of 
Erasmus that they were invited — they were all mar- 
ried then — by the King himself to appear before him 
and hold a philosophical tournament in his presence. 

So that the home in which Margaret Roper was 
brought up was such a one as to develop in her all 
those fine characteristics which she had inherited from 
her learned and saintly father. She was sixteen years 
old when she fell in love with and married William 

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MARGARET ROPER 

Roper. Roper belonged to distinguished legal fam- 
ilies both on the side of his father and on that of his 
mother. He was educated at one of the English uni- 
versities, and received his father's office of clerk of 
the pleas in the Court of King's Bench, an office he 
held till shortly before his death. When he was 
about twenty-three he was taken into More's home, 
no doubt on account of associations at court. He is 
described by Erasmus as a young man who "is wealthy, 
of excellent and modest character, and not unac- 
quainted with literature," Later in life he served 
four times in the Parliament of Queen Mary. We 
are not surprised that the brilliant and wealthy young 
man soon fell in love with Margaret More. She was 
of the character, refined, pious, and learned, that 
would appeal to him. And so at the age of twenty- 
six he married her. She was then but sixteen. 

It was a happy marriage, yet in the beginning it 
threatened to be disrupted by differences in religion. 
It was the time when the new doctrines of Martin 
Luther were becoming popular in certain quarters. 
Young Roper took kindly to the novelty, and soon 
became a zealous Protestant, anxious to talk the new 
religion to everybody he met, so much so that he was 
arrested on the charge of heresy and brought before 
Cardinal Wolsey, then chancellor. Wolsey, out of re- 
gard for his friend More, gave the youth a friendly 
warning and discharged him. But Roper kept up the 
talk at home. He affected to despise the religious life 
of More, and assumed a superiority to him. More 

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argued with him, but finally saw that he was wasting 
his time in so doing. "Meg," said he to his daughter 
one day, "I have borne a long time with thy husband : 
I have reasoned and argued with him in these points 
of religion, and still given to him my poor fatherly 
counsel, but I perceive none of this able to call him 
home; and therefore, Meg, I will no longer dispute 
with him, but will clean give him over and get me 
to God and pray for him." 

What More could not do with his son-in-law by 
argument he did by prayer. Roper soon returned to 
the faith, attributing his conversion to the prayers of 
More. And he ever remained faithful after that to 
the old religion, so much so that in later times, when 
Elizabeth ruled, he was summoned before her council 
for being a Catholic. 

Roper made a good husband for Margaret. He had 
the same tastes. We find both of them, even after 
their marriage, studying the same branches together. 
He could give her all that the world held dear, for he 
was wealthy; yet we never find her losing her head 
over her prosperity. She was always content to be 
the humble, studious, diligent wife. She was never 
idle, being either engaged in her studies, or in looking 
after the affairs of the house, or in attending to the 
charities which were so dear to her father's heart. 

More was noted for his charity ; he was the greatest 
lawyer of his time, making an income of what would 
to-day amount to twenty-five thousand dollars a year, 
but, sought as he was on all sides, he was always at 

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MARGARET ROPER 

the call of the poor; from them he would never take 
a cent as fee, even while he devoted himself to their 
cases with as much care as if he expected to be paid 
well by them. But not only did he exercise charity 
in this manner : he even went so far as to hire a house 
in the parish where he lived, to care for the sick, the 
poor, and the old, and tended them himself. When 
he was away on business it was the special privilege 
of Margaret to tend them in his place. It was the 
greatest proof of love he could give her. There is 
one of his letters to her which specially shows his ad- 
miration for her. "You ask, my dear Margaret," he 
writes, "for money with too much bash fulness and 
timidity, since you are asking from a father who is 
eager to give, and since you have written to me a 
letter such that I would not only repay each line of 
it with a golden philippine, as Alexander did the verses 
of Cherilos, but, if my means were as great as my 
desire, I would reward each syllable with two golden 
ounces. As it is, I send only what you have asked, 
but would have added more, only that as I am eager to 
give, so am I desirous to be asked and coaxed by my 
daughter, especially by you, whom virtue and learning 
have made so dear to my soul. So the sooner you 
spend this money well, as you are wont to do, and 
the sooner you ask for more, the more you will be sure 
of pleasing your father." 

Once, when she was at the point of death with the 
sweating sickness, and the doctors had given up all 
hope of her recovery, the grieving father went to the 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

chapel, and on his knees begged God to spare her if 
it were His blessed will. The prayer was answered, 
and Margaret recovered, even though it had been seen 
that all the marks of death were on her. More at 
the time said that if she had died, he "would never 
have meddled in worldly matters more." 

It was a family of joy and prosperity, a home with 
all those things that make life worth living. But even 
then the shadow of death was nearing. 

In 1509 Henry VIII had come to the throne of Eng- 
land. More was then famous as a lawyer, so much 
so that he attracted the notice of the King, who told 
Wolsey, then chancellor, to do his best to have More 
enter the service of the court. But More was not a 
bit anxious to come to court ; he was happy as he was, 
independent, without taking upon himself the burden 
of affairs of state. But it was hard for him to avoid 
the demands of the court. He was sent on a mission 
to Flanders, on which he was absent six months; and 
so well did he acquit himself of the task, that more 
than ever the King desired to secure his services. 
More put it off as long as he could, but fearing that 
refusal would finally mean his destruction, he obeyed 
the summons of the King and came to court. 

More was now a statesman, beginning the career 
that was to last twenty years, and that was to end 
with his death at the hands of the King who was now 
so anxious to advance him. But while answering the 
command of the King and coming to court to serve 
him, More never lost his independence of soul. He 

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MARGARET ROPER 

always spoke out his mind on public affairs, even when 
he knew that his views were not pleasing to the King. 
In 1 518, when he was forty years of age, he was ap- 
pointed privy councilor, and in 1521 was elevated to 
the rank of knight. But the new honors did not 
change his character a bit. He was the same simple 
man in the days of glory as he had been in the days 
of struggle. 

In those first years of public service More was 
pleasing to Henry VIII. Henry was then an amiable 
prince, affable and courteous. This was before he 
became a slave to his passions and fell in love with 
Anne Boleyn, who later on was to work such havoc 
in the kingdom and in the Church. More traveled 
with the King, especially during the terrible days of 
tne sweating sickness, a plague which destroyed mul- 
titudes of lives. The King sent him on legations, even 
honoring him by making him the royal secretary. 
Wolsey, too, admired More, and their relations were 
always most cordial. The King was so proud to 
have such a man at court that he often made him 
come and dine with himself and the Queen ; and, more 
than that, came himself to visit at More's house, where 
they could be seen walking in the garden, the arm 
of the King about the neck of More. 

It was too good to last. Henry, who had once 
been the defender of the faith, was now to become 
its persecutor, and all through his impure passions. 
It was a strange friendship, that of More and the 
King. While all the time More was advancing in 

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virtue, the King was advancing in sin. The reason 
of the decline was this. After the end of the war 
with France, the King and his courtiers had little to 
do. There was nothing for them now but to seek 
amusement. The courtiers had no education to serve 
as diplomats. And so with Henry, who was now 
thirty-six. He began to pay less and less attention 
to the business of state, and spent his days in hunt- 
ing and gambling. More did not care for the so- 
ciety of men to whom impurity did not seem much of 
a crime; and so he kept away from the King as 
much as possible, even though the King, secretly ad- 
miring his virtue and his ability, liked to keep him 
near him. And then came the time when Henry 
thought he could use More to further his own self- 
ish ends. He was going to make him return all the 
kindness which he had shown him. The occasion was 
the divorce which Henry sought from his lawful wife, 
Katharine. 

The story of the divorce is this. Henry was the 
second son of Henry VII. The eldest son was Prince 
Arthur. Arthur had married Katharine of Aragon. 
It was an international marriage, but it had never 
been consummated, and Arthur died in 1502. When 
Henry VII died, Henry VIII, then a young man of 
eighteen, succeeded to the throne. Katharine, his 
brother's widow, was five years his senior ; but Henry 
determined to marry her, and in order to do so a dis- 
pensation from Rome was obtained. Henry was now 
content and happy. He always, even after the divorce, 

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MARGARET ROPER 

had the highest regard for Katharine. At any rate, 
he had no scruples then about the legality of his mar- 
riage with her. It was only years after that he began 
to express his worry that he was living in sin by hav- 
ing as his wife the widow of his brother, even though 
a dispensation had been granted by the Church. One 
reason for his desire to get rid of Katharine was the 
fact that he had by her no male children. All her 
children but Mary, afterwards queen, died in infancy. 
But the chief reason for his wish to be divorced was 
Anne Boleyn. It is doubtful if Henry's married life 
was ever pure. He had had impure relations with 
Mary Boleyn, a sister of Anne, a fact which made his 
marriage with Anne later on invalid, apart from the 
question of Katharine being alive, on account of the 
impediment of affinity. 

Anne had been in the employ of Henry's sister 
Mary in France at the time she married the French 
King. After his death she came to England and was 
made a lady-in-waiting to Queen Katharine. The 
strange thing which shows the hypocrisy of Henry is 
that he had no conscientious worries about his af- 
finity with her. But Anne was very wise. She had 
the example of her sister Mary to guide her. Henry 
had thrown Mary aside. Anne was determined that 
he should marry her or she would have nothing to do 
with him. He must get a divorce from Katharine. 

No need to go into the details of the fight for and 
against the divorce. The great universities of the 
world were approached, but after serious investiga- 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

tion the majority were for the validity of Henry's 
marriage with Katharine. Rome could do nothing 
but decide for the Queen against the King out of pure 
justice. Wolsey had tried hard to have the marriage 
annulled, even while he had no notion that the 
King was inclined towards Anne Boleyn. He was 
looking towards a union with France. He hated Anne 
Boleyn, and she hated him. But Wolsey failed in 
his effort, and was obliged to resign the chancellor- 
ship in 1529. 

A week after his retirement as chancellor, the seal 
was given to Thomas More. He was now Lord Chan- 
cellor of England. Everybody, even Wolsey, was 
pleased. But More himself was not pleased. He saw 
the way the wind was blowing. He knew that he 
had received the great honor as a bribe to induce him 
to come out in favor of the divorce. He knew that 
Henry then was trying to find flaws in the dispensa- 
tion that had permitted him to marry Katharine. But 
he refused to discuss the matter, saying that he was 
incompetent to judge. Even after the marriage with 
Anne he refused to give his opinion. He was. virtu- 
ally obliged to accept the chancellorship. If he had 
refused he would have gone to the block sooner than 
he did go. More had attained the highest point in his 
career. He was now the chief adviser of the King and 
the council. He had a great income, but he still con- 
tinued to live a simple life, knowing that every mo- 
ment he was in danger of death. He was then fifty- 
two. 

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MARGARET ROPER 

In 1 53 1 Henry took the title of "Supreme Head of 
the Anglican Church." It was at the time rather an 
ambiguous title and was not in opposition to the su- 
premacy of the Holy See. But More did not like the 
whole business, and he even thought of resigning, see- 
ing that the King was beginning to usurp the author- 
ity that belonged to the Church alone. Finally, in 
1532, he resigned. He saw that he could not retain 
the office in conscience, and that he would have to 
displease the King by refusing to side against the 
clergy. It was a great sacrifice, leaving More with 
an income of only five hundred dollars. It necessi- 
tated the breaking up of his family circle, since he was 
unable now to keep up the great establishment he had 
maintained for years. 

Even after the resignation the King continued to 
have the deepest respect for More. But More had 
many enemies at court in the party of Anne Boleyn, 
who was still waiting for the divorce to be pronounced. 
Charges were brought against him, but he was exon- 
erated from them all. Added to his poverty, his 
health began to fail. But he did not complain. He 
was glad to be free from the world in order to at- 
tend to his soul. 

The divorce was not granted, but Henry and Anne 
were married in 1533, and at the Pentecost of that 
year she made a magnificent entry into London to be 
crowned queen. More refused to be present — an- 
other reason why Anne determined to be revenged for 
his slights against her. Plots were now set on foot 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

for his ruin. The occasion of the plots was the case 
of "the Holy Maid of Kent." The woman was one 
Elizabeth Barton, a servant-maid, who was said to 
have been cured of the falling sickness in a chapel 
of Our Lady. She became a nun at Canterbury, and 
soon got the reputation of having received revelations, 
from which she was known as "the Holy Maid of 
Kent." Soon her supposed revelations took a political 
turn. She declared that she had had revelations about 
the divorce, and warned the King and Wolsey, who 
was then chancellor. She was the tool of the anti- 
divorce party, and as the result of it she and several 
others were convicted of treason and were executed 
at Tyburn in 1534. More was charged with misprision 
of treason in not having had her apprehended, but he 
proved that while he had regarded her as pious, and 
all that, he had never heard any treasonable state- 
ments from her. His name was put in the bill of at- 
tainder with others, but finally was stricken from it 
for lack of evidence. 

But he was not yet safe by any means. Henry, 
who had thought so highly of him, now grew to hate 
him for his very goodness and the impossibility of 
corrupting him. In order to win him over to the 
cause of Anne and to approve of his marriage with 
her, he had More accused of treason. But the coun- 
cil feared public sentiment if this were done, and it 
prevailed upon the King to spare More. A turn in 
affairs now took place, for the marriage had been cele- 
brated and the work was begun of confirming Anne's 

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MARGARET ROPER 

offspring in the succession to the crown. This was 
done by requiring oaths. A bill was passed in Parlia- 
ment, and received the royal assent in 1534, making 
it high treason to oppose the succession, and mis- 
prision of treason to speak against it. A preamble was 
drawn up by the commissioners, and was therefore 
invalid, as the Parliament alone had the right to do 
this, declaring the first marriage illegal, and that with 
Anne Boleyn legal. It implied a rejection of the 
Pope's authority, since he had given the final decision 
that Katharine's marriage had been valid; moreover, 
the preamble included the repudiation of any oath 
taken "to any foreign authority, prince, or potentate." 
This was, of course, directed against the Pope. An 
oath was administered to the clergy rejecting the au- 
thority of the Pope, whereas the form chosen for 
the laity dwelt rather on the succession of Anne's 
children to the crown. The oath was taken by the 
members of both Houses of Parliament. 

One day, when More came to London to hear a ser- 
mon at St. Paul's, he was cited to appear before the 
royal commission to take the oath. Feeling that trou- 
ble was approaching, he went to confession, heard 
Mass, and received Holy Communion. He read the 
oath and the Act of Succession and refused to sign. 
He found no fault with others who signed it, but he 
declared that it was against his own conscience to 
sign. He refused to give his reasons, saying that he 
would give them to the King if he wanted them. He 
was willing to sign for the succession, but would not 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

sign the preamble rejecting the authority of the Pope. 
And so for his refusal he was sent to the Tower. 
Cranmer suggested to the King a modification of the 
oath in order to get More to sign it; but the King 
refused. He wanted to humble More. 

In the winter session of Parliament, More, together 
with Bishop Fisher, was charged with misprision of 
treason. More had been in the Tower all this time. 
He was a prey to physical sufferings; but that was 
not enough penance. He wore the hair shirt as usual, 
and gave much time to prayer, rather pleased with his 
imprisonment, as it gave him more time to devote to 
his soul. His wife came to him, and begged him to 
sign the oath, but he turned her off in a bantering 
way. Even his beloved daughter Margaret came to 
him and pleaded with him to have pity on himself and 
his family and do as the King required. She her- 
self had signed the oath, "as far as it would stand 
with the law of God/' and she could not see why he 
also could not do the same. It was not surprising. So 
many high in the Church had signed it that it was not 
strange that women felt it all right to do so. More 
told her that she did not know what she was doing in 
tempting him; as for himself, he said that he had 
counted the cost long ago. His conscience would not 
permit him to sign it, and that was all there was to it. 

The family pleaded with the King; but he was ob- 
durate. More's property at Chelsea was confiscated, 
that home which had been the scene of so much hap- 
piness, into which Henry himself had so often been 

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MARGARET ROPER 

welcomed. Parliament now passed a new statute as- 
serting that Henry was the only Supreme Head on 
earth of the Church of England. 

There is no need to go into all the details of those 
last days of More. His trial was a farce. On the 
day that the Carthusians and others were put to death 
on the same charge of misprision of treason, Margaret 
came to visit him in jail. Her husband, Roper, tells 
us of that interview. "As Sir Thomas More was look- 
ing out of his window, he chanced to behold one Mas- 
ter Reynolds, a religious, learned, and virtuous Father 
in Sion, and three monks of the Charterhouse, for 
the matter of the supremacy and the matrimony going 
out of the Tower of execution ; he, as one longing in 
that journey to have accompanied them, said unto my 
wife standing there beside him : 'Lo, dost thou not 
see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheer- 
fully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their 
marriage ? Wherefore, thereby thou mayest see, mine 
own good daughter, what a difference there is be- 
tween such as have in effect spent all their days in a 
strait and penitential life religiously and such as have 
in the world, like worldly wretches (as thy poor father 
hath done), consumed all their time in pleasure and 
ease licentiously. For God, considering their long- 
continued life in most sore and grievous penance, will 
no longer suffer them to remain here in this vale of 
misery, but speedily hence taketh them to the fruition 
of His everlasting Deity. Whereas thy silly father, 
Meg, that like a wicked caitiff hath passed the whole 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

course of his miserable life most sinfully,— God, think- 
ing him not worthy so soon to come to that eternal 
felicity, leaveth him here still in the world further to 
be plagued and turmoiled with misery.' " 

More answered the charges against him by saying 
to the court that he knew the reason of his condemna- 
tion was his refusal to agree to the King's second 
marriage. The beloved Margaret, it can well be im- 
agined, was near to distraction during these days of 
the trial. Eagerly she waited for every word from 
the jail. She could not content herself at home, but 
must come forth, eager to give help to the man who 
loved her so dearly. As More was being brought 
back to the Tower from the place of trial, Margaret 
rushed through the crowd of guards, and threw her- 
self upon his neck and kissed him with all the af- 
fection of her heart. Again she ran back to him, and 
again embraced him. So affecting was the scene that 
as the father blessed his daughter the bystanders were 
moved to tears. 

More was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quar- 
tered at Tyburn. The sentence did not alarm him ; it 
drove him to give more time to the care of his soul. In 
the midst of his cares he wrote to his family. His let- 
ter to Margaret, written with a coal, is so touching 
that we give it entire. It was the last he ever wrote : 

"Our Lord bless you, good daughter, and your 
good husband, and your little boy, and all yours, and 
all my children, and all my godchildren, and all my 
friends. Recommend me, when ye may, to my good 

[216] 



MARGARET ROPER 

daughter Cicily, whom I beseech Our Lord to com- 
fort. And I send her my blessing, and to all her 
children, and pray her to pray for me. I send her 
an handkerchief; and God comfort my good son her 
husband. My good daughter Dance hath the picture 
in parchment that you delivered me from my Lady 
Coniers; her name is on the back. Show her that I 
heartily pray her that you may send it in my name to 
her again, for a token from me to pray for me. I like 
well Dorothy Coly; I pray you be good unto her. I 
would wit whether this be she that you wrote me of. 
If not, yet I pray you be good to the other, as you 
may in her affliction, and to my good daughter Joan 
Aleyn, too. Give her, I pray you, some kind answer, 
for she sued hither to me this day to pray you be good 
to her. I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I 
would be sorry if it should be any longer than to- 
morrow. For it is St. Thomas's eve, and the Utas of 
St. Peter: and therefore to-morrow I long to go to 
God : it were a day very meet and convenient for me. 
I never liked your manner towards me better than 
when you kissed me last : for I love when daughterly 
love and dear charity hath no leisure to make look to 
worldly courtesy. Farewell, my dear child, and pray 
for me, and I shall for you and all your friends, that 
we may merrily meet in Heaven. I thank you for 
your great cost. I send now to my good daughter 
Clement her algorism stone, and I send her, and my 
godson, and all hers God's blessing and mine. I pray 
you at time convenient recommend me to my good son 

[217] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

John More; I liked well his natural fashion. Our 
Lord bless him and his good wife my loving daughter, 
to whom I pray you to be good, as he hath great cause : 
and that if the land of mine come to his hand, he 
break not my will concerning his sister Dance. And 
Our Lord bless Thomas and Austen and all that they 
shall have." 

More, as stated above, had been sentenced to die as 
a traitor — that is, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered 
— but the King commuted the sentence to beheading on 
Tower Hill. 

When the news came to him one morning that he 
was to die that day, he thanked the messenger for the 
good news, and begged that his daughter Meg might 
be allowed to be present at his burial ; and he was told 
that all his family might assist at that last service. 
He had sent his hair shirt to Margaret; she used to 
wash it for him, and was the only one he permitted 
to see this instrument of penance. 

And so he was led forth to die. We get a picture of 
the noble man that morning, going to his doom, his 
face pale, his body emaciated from the long imprison- 
ment, in his dress of frieze, carrying in his hand a 
small red cross, his eyes turned to heaven. When he 
had ascended the scaffold, he asked the people to pray 
for him, and called them to witness that he died for 
the Catholic faith. He then knelt and recited his fa- 
vorite prayer, the Miserere. Then he bound his eyes 
with a handkerchief, placed his neck on the block, 
and in this manner gave up his soul to God. 

[218] 



MARGARET ROPER 

After the execution, the head of More, according 
to the custom of those days, was parboiled and then 
fixed on a stake on London Bridge as a warning to 
traitors. There it remained a month, till Margaret 
bribed the man whose business it was to throw it into 
the river after a certain time to give it to her. It was 
the dearest treasure she possessed. She had it pre- 
served in spices, and kept it while she lived. Later 
on she was summoned before the council to answer 
the charge of keeping the head as a relic. She an- 
swered that she had procured it so that it might not 
be the food of fishes. She desired that the head should 
be buried with her when she died. There is an old 
tradition that when she was buried the head of her 
father was laid on her bosom. Tennyson beautifully 
describes that incident in his "Dream of Fair 
Women" : 

"Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark 
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance 
Her murder'd father's head. . . ." 

When the news reached Margaret that her father 
had been beheaded, her first thought was to prepare 
his body for burial. So, accompanied by her maid, 
she came to St. Peter's chapel in the Tower, where 
the headless body was lying. It is related that when 
she arrived there she realized that she had come with- 
out a sheet in which to wrap the body. She was with- 
out a cent, as all the money she had had she had given 
to the poor in aid of her father's soul. The maid 

[219] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

went out to a draper's shop to get the linen, and 
when she looked into her purse she found the exact 
sum that the cloth cost. 

After the burial Margaret watched for the time 
when the head would be disposed of. We can fancy 
her coming to London Bridge to gaze with love on the 
adored head, and the eagerness with which she bought 
the dear treasure from the keeper. As we have said, 
she was later on summoned before the council on the 
charge of keeping the head as a relic, and also that 
she had the intention of publishing her father's writ- 
ings. 

"It would be well to remember," said the Chancel- 
lor, "that he suffered death as a traitor, and to be 
cautious, fair mistress, lest thou thyself be con- 
demned.' , 

"I procured my father's head," she answered, "lest 
it should become food for fishes, hearing that an or- 
der had gone forth that it was to be cast into the 
Thames; and for the rest, I have buried it where I 
thought fit. Methinks, my lords, I speak to such 
amongst ye as have daughters; they could scarce do 
less than I have done, if the hard hap of life should 
render them fatherless in such a way. Alack, they 
would not stop to reckon up the cost to themselves, 
nor care whether in the eyes of the law you had been 
deemed guilty. I did procure that venerated head, my 
lords, it listeth me not to tell you how/ Nevertheless 
I glory in the deed, and if for such I be deemed 
worthy of punishment, I am in your hands; do with 

[220] 



MARGARET ROPER 

me as it pleaseth you. Moreover, I will publish his 
works when opportunity shall serve." 

She was dismissed while the council held a confer- 
ence as to what should be done to punish her. It was 
decided to cast her into prison. There she remained, 
however, but a short time, as it was feared that the 
people, who were indignant at the imprisonment, would 
show their resentment. Margaret would have been 
pleased, no doubt, to go the way of her father. But 
it was not the will of God. She had her work to do 
in the world, the work of caring for and educating the 
children God had sent her. 

She lived nine years after her father. They were 
sad days for her, yet by degrees peace returned to her 
soul. She watched over the education of her children, 
as her father had watched over hers. Her husband 
prospered in his profession, and she always had an 
abundance of this world's goods. But their riches 
were used by them in open generosity. She rejoiced 
in distributing his alms, as she had distributed those 
of her father. And more than all else, she had time 
to give to prayer, remembering the wonderful ex- 
ample of her sainted father. 

Her last years were spent at her husband's estate 
in Canterbury, where she gave the example of a 
model wife and mother, ever generous to the poor. 
When she died, a great throng came to her funeral, 
prominent among them the poor whom she had be- 
friended. We are told even of those who constituted 
her funeral procession. First walked the poor, two 

[221] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and two. To these succeeded servants with black 
staves. The brothers-in-law of the deceased lady. 
Her brother. Her sons. Then was borne, covered 
with black velvet, the leaden box containing the head 
of Sir Thomas More. Then the corpse borne on a 
bier, men on either side bearing staves. William 
Roper walked at the head of the coffin. Then came 
distant relatives and friends, men with staves keep- 
ing back the throng. And so, all chanting the De 
Prof undis, they carried the remains of Margaret Roper 
to the little church of St. Dunstan, which she loved 
so much, and where she had spent so many hours in 
prayer. And there, after the Requiem Mass, she was 
buried in a large vault beneath the Roper chancel, the 
burial-place of all the family. In a small niche in the 
wall of the vault was placed the box containing the 
head of the father she had so loved in life and in 
death. The following is the epitaph in the church: 

"Here lieth interred Thomas Roper, a venerable 
and worthy man, the son and successor of the late W. 
Roper and Margaret his wife, daughter of Sir Thomas 
More, knight, a woman excellently well skilled in the 
Greek and Latin tongues. The above mentioned Wil- 
liam Roper succeeded his father in the office of Pro- 
thonotary of ye Bench; after having discharged the 
duties of it faithfully for 44 years he left it to his 
son Thomas. The said William Roper was both lib- 
eral in his domestic and public conduct, kind and com- 
passionate in his temper, the support and preserver of 
the poor and the oppressed. He had issue by Mar- 

[ m I 



MARGARET ROPER 

garet, his only wife, two sons and three daughters, 
whose children and grandchildren he lived to see. He 
lost his wife in the bloom of his years, and lived a 
chaste widower 2,3 years. At length, his days finished 
in peace, he died, lamented by all, in a good old age, 
on the 4th of January, 1577, and of his age 82." 

One of their daughters, Mary, was maid of honor 
to Queen Mary Tudor. She also, like her mother, 
was learned, and translated into English part of one 
of her grandfather's Latin works. Even to-day in 
England there are many families that can claim de- 
scent from Sir Thomas More through his beloved 
daughter Margaret. 

So died Margaret Roper in the prime of life. We 
would wish to know more about her personally, so 
appealing is her story to every lover of the good and 
the beautiful. Her life, as we have seen, was bound 
up in that of her martyred father. We know her 
through her intimate and beautiful association with 
him. But little as we know of her personally, that 
little is enough to paint a picture of a true Catholic 
daughter, mother, and wife, not only the "ornament of 
Britain," as Erasmus called her, but an ornament of 
all true womanhood, the beautiful, charitable, learned, 
pious, and, above all, loving Margaret Roper. 



[ 223 ] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW] 
(1556-1586) 

THE English Reformation, if it has perpetuated 
for all time the picture of degraded woman- 
hood in Queen Elizabeth, so also has it immortalized 
the memory of many a noble woman. How time 
shows the real value of things! Back in the year 1586 
there were living in England two women: one was 
queen of a great kingdom, seated upon her throne, 
listening to the voice of flatterers, trembling for her 
very crown, which had come to her through the lust 
and dishonesty of the miserable Henry VIII. Her 
dainty fingers held the sceptre; she was a fortunate, 
a successful ruler. But in the eyes of God those dainty 
fingers were the fingers of a Lady Macbeth, red with 
blood which all the seas of the world could never again 
make white. Yet to the world of her day she was the 
most happy of women. 

The other woman was deemed the most unhappy of 
women; a traitor to this great queen, a woman, too, 
whose gentle body was covered with blood, but blood 
that is the sign of glory unending. She was Mar- 
garet Clitherow, the first woman martyr in the reign 
of Elizabeth, a gentle wife and mother crushed to her 

[224] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

death because she followed her conscience and served 
her God. An unfortunate woman to her age, a fool 
to lay down her life for such a simple thing as re- 
ligion, when but a word would have saved her to 
years of happiness. But the centuries have gone by; 
and as we look across them to behold the queenly 
woman on her throne and the disgraced martyr on 
her bed of death, do we need to say which of them 
was the happier, which the more to be envied, the 
Queen who risked her eternal salvation for the bauble 
of a crown, or the young Catholic wife who chose to 
serve God rather than an earthly ruler, and so went the 
way of suffering and death to reign with Christ in 
Heaven ? 

Margaret Clitherow, whose maiden name was Mid- 
dleton, was born and lived all her life in the city of 
York. Her father was Thomas Middleton, a wax- 
chandler, evidently a man of means and of some im- 
portance in the community, for we find him holding 
various offices, acting as sheriff for one year, and at 
different times a member of the Common Council. 
After his death his widow did not long remain in- 
consolable, for four months later she married a man 
named Henry May, who by a strange circumstance 
was lord mayor of the city at the time his stepdaughter 
Margaret Clitherow was put to death for her faith. 

With her mother and her stepfather Margaret made 
her home for four years, until the time of her mar- 
riage in 1 571 to John Clitherow, a wealthy butcher, 
who established her in a magnificent home which later 

[225] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

on was to be the hiding-place of many a poor priest 
with a price on his head. It is said that she was very 
beautiful, the fairest of brides. It was a happy mar- 
riage, a home with all that the world could give, money, 
position, and love, with never a trial until the day when 
God tested her in his fiery furnace. 

For some years now the Protestant religion was 
dominant in England. The revolt that had been be- 
gun by Henry in his lust and covetousness of the 
Church's goods had been consummated by his illegiti- 
mate daughter Elizabeth. She had succeeded to the 
throne in 1 5 58, two years after the birth of Margaret 
Middleton. Thomas Middleton, judging from the 
offices he had held, had evidently conformed to the 
new religion with his wife. At any rate, Margaret 
was brought up in the queer new Protestant religion. 
She knew no better. The old Catholic religion was a 
despised thing by those who sought preferment in 
holding to the new faith which Elizabeth set up in 
order to make her position secure. In a worldly sense 
she was driven to it, though she had little religion of 
any kind in her own make-up. Rome had in justice 
branded her as illegitimate from the fact that her 
mother's marriage with Henry was null. Catholics in 
general regarded her as a usurper of the throne, which 
they declared belonged by right to Mary Queen of 
Scots. Hence her aim was to banish the old religion 
for her own safety. 

And little Margaret Middleton, as she grew up, was 
made to conform to the new order of things. At the 

[226] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

time she was married to John Clitherow there were in 
York many signs of the passing of the old order. The 
altars in the churches were being torn down, the altar- 
stones turned into pavements; the rood-lofts with their 
great crucifixes were burned, the glorious windows of 
stained glass broken, the gold and silver altar vessels 
melted down to enrich the destroyers, and the Scrip- 
ture scenes that had been painted on the walls obliter- 
ated by coats of whitewash. There was an effort to 
make the people forget all the beauties that had been, 
and this with such diabolical hatred that in York it- 
self no less than nineteen churches were destroyed. 

But, try as she might, Margaret found no consola- 
tion in the new religion. For three years after her 
marriage — she was but fifteen when she married — she 
followed the new faith. But all the while it palled 
on her. Her soul was not satisfied. All the more 
was she discontented as she heard the touching stories 
about the priests and laymen who went to their death 
in defence of the old religion. She little thought that 
the day would come when she, too, would be called 
upon to lay down her life in defence of it. Even in 
those days the martyrs of the faith made an appeal 
to her. Surely, she thought, the faith must be true 
that could inspire such heroism. And so, after ear- 
nest prayer and study, the light of faith came to her, 
and she was received into the Catholic Church. 

Even if Margaret Clitherow had never died the 
martyr's death, her name would deserve to be held in 
everlasting remembrance as that of an exemplary wife 

[227] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and mother. Perhaps it was because she was such, 
corresponding so perfectly to all the graces of God, 
that she was at length enriched with the glorious privi- 
lege of martyrdom. From the time she became a 
Catholic her life was one great act of love for God. 

We get a beautiful picture of her in the midst of 
her family. John Clitherow, her husband, belonged 
to the established church, though he had a brother a 
priest. He did not interfere, however, with her in the 
practice of her religion; and, moreover, he permitted 
her to bring up her children in the Catholic faith, a 
sign of the firm character of his wife at a time when 
a father knew that the Catholic faith was a handicap 
for his children. They had three children, two boys, 
Henry and William, who became priests later on, and 
one daughter, Anne, who became a nun at St. Ursula's, 
Louvain. They were blessed for their mother's loyalty 
to the faith. 

The Clitherows had an abundance of the goods of 
the world, but that did not make the young wife feel 
that she could be an idler. She was an example of 
the busy housewife who, with all her cares, could 
find time for the special service of God. She arose 
early every day, and spent an hour and a half, some- 
times two hours, on her knees, praying and meditating. 
She had a room in her house set aside as a chapel, and 
there very often Mass was said by her spiritual direc- 
tor or by one of the missionary priests who, with a 
price on their heads, sought a refuge in her house, 
which was a centre of Catholicity, a refuge for all the 

[228] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

priests who went up and down the country, looking 
after the spiritual wants of those who remained true 
to the old Church. What a happiness it was to her 
to harbor the ministers of God, finding her great re- 
ward in the blessing of having the Holy Sacrifice of- 
fered up in her own home ! It was like a page from 
the story of the Catacombs, where the first Christians 
worshipped in secret. She was again the Roman 
matron presiding over the destinies of a proscribed 
people. 

Mass over, she busied herself with the management 
of her household, striving to do the humblest tasks for 
the glory of God. 

"Now for God's sake pray for me," she used to say 
to Father Mush, her director, who later wrote the 
story of her life and sufferings. "Methinks I do 
nothing well, because I overslipped this right inten- 
tion, which God's servants should always have actually, 
to refer all my doing to His glory." 

Her greatest joy was to serve the meals to the 
priests who sought her protection. She had many 
servants, but she did not disdain helping them in their 
work. Many a time did she spare them, and perform 
herself the humblest duties of the household, saying, 
"God forbid that I should will any to do that in my 
house which I would not willingly do myself first." 
Nor did she hesitate to correct them when they needed 
it. Her confessor, noting this, asked her one day: 
"How is it that you dare speak so sharply to these 
servants, when they are careless in the performance of 

[229] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

their duty? Have you forgotten that they have it in 
their power to revenge themselves on you by making 
it known that priests are concealed in your house ?" 

And she would reply: "God defend that, for my 
Christian liberty in serving Him in my House, I 
should neglect my duty to my servants, or not correct 
them as they deserve. God shall dispose of all as it 
pleaseth Him ; but I will not be blamed for their faults, 
nor fear any danger for this good cause." 

The servant problem would be settled very easily if 
there were more mistresses like Margaret Clitherow. 

This valiant woman knew all the while that her life 
was in danger, but the thought did not make her 
morose or sad. She was always cheerful, always with 
a smile on her lips, and ready to take part in any fun. 
She reminds us of the dear St. Elizabeth of Hungary, 
who, even while she wore the hair shirt of penance, 
could take part in the dance and bring pleasure to 
others. The only sorrow she had to drive the smile 
away was the fear for the life of the priests who left 
her house to go forth on their missionary journeys. 
Many a time, too, she was found weeping when her 
house was without a priest to say Mass, thinking that 
some fault of hers had made God take from her that 
grace. 

At four o'clock in the evening, when most of the 
day's work was done, she would spend an hour in 
prayer with her little ones gathered about her. We 
can fancy the things she talked about to them, telling 
them of the blessings of the faith, relating the hero- 

[230] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

ism of the martyrs of their own times, and implant- 
ing in their souls the seeds that in later years were to 
give such abundant harvest. Then at eight or nine 
she would seek her spiritual director and get his bless- 
ing, after which she would spend an hour in prayer 
before retiring. And along with this life of prayer 
she practised severe mortification. Perpetually she 
curbed her appetite. Four days of the week she kept 
strict abstinence, and on Monday, Wednesday, and 
Saturday took but one meal. On Friday she fasted 
on bread and water, and scourged herself with the dis- 
cipline whenever her confessor permitted her to do so. 
Busy as she was, she found time for the reading of 
pious books, her favorites being the New Testament, 
the Imitation of Christ, and Per in' s Exercise. She 
even learned by heart the Little Office of the Blessed 
Virgin in Latin, saying, "If it please God so to dispose, 
and that He sets me at liberty from the world, I will 
with all my heart take upon me some religious habit, 
whereby I may ever serve God under obedience." She 
little guessed in what way God was to set her at lib- 
erty from the world. 

Twice a week she confessed, weeping over the small- 
est faults; and when she went to Holy Communion 
she took her place far from the altar, bowed down 
with her own unworthiness, and the tears would 
stream from her eyes as she received the Bread of 
Angels. 

Such was the daily life of this wife and mother, 
more like the life of the nun in her cloister away from 

[231] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

the cares of the world. So that I say, even if Mar- 
garet Clitherow had not died the martyr's death, she 
would still deserve everlasting remembrance as an ex- 
emplary woman in the world. 

But even while she busied herself in her home and 
served God lovingly and whole-heartedly, martyrdom 
was coming near. Even if she had known that, it 
would not have frightened her; rather would llxliave 
given her joy, for if there was one thing that this, 
beautiful, wealthy, happy young wife prayed for, it 
was that she would be permitted to suffer death for 
the sake of Christ. One day she related to her little 
daughter, Anne, the story of the martyrdom of Father 
Lacy, an old priest who had spent many days under 
her roof. He had been sentenced to death for high 
treason because in his trial he refused to acknowledge 
the Queen as the Supreme Head of the Church. "God 
be forever blessed," he said; "I am now old, and by 
the course of nature cannot expect to live long. This 
will be no more to me than to pay the common debt 
a little before the time/' 

"Mother," said little Anne, "if you had stood at the 
bar and been sentenced to death like Father Lacy, 
would not you have been frightened and sad?" 

But the mother answered : "Why should I be fright- 
ened and sad if I were condemned to die for the 
Catholic faith? Methinks I would die any death for 
so good a cause." 

With Father Lacy there was martyred another 
priest, Father Kirkeman, who, too, had enjoyed the 

[232] 



MARGARET CLITHEROVV 

hospitality of the Clitherow home. And when she 
had finished the story of these men of God, dragged 
on a hurdle through the streets and finally hanged at 
Tyburn, where criminals were put to death and their 
poor bodies drawn and quartered, she cried out, "Oh, 
children, how glorious a privilege it is to die for 
Christ! How sweet would it be to pour out every 
drop of blood for the Church He came on earth to 
f ocind ! Happy martyrs ! who have merited the favor 
I, alas, am unworthy to obtain. From my heart I re- 
joice and am exceeding glad that these two blessed 
priests have suffered and died with courage, patience, 
and heroic constancy. Ah ! it shall still, as heretofore, 
be my daily prayer that I may be worthy to endure 
whatever may betide for God's sake and the Catholic 
faith !" 

After the execution of these two priests in 1582, in 
the month of August, there followed in a few months' 
time the martyrdom on the same spot of three other 
priests, Father James Thompson, Father William 
Hart, and Father Richard Thirkill, all of whom had 
been at one time or another her spiritual directors. 
It was only natural then that she, who had such a 
desire of martyrdom, should feel great devotion 
to the place where these her friends had laid down 
their lives before her. Tyburn, where stood the gal- 
lows, was situated about half a mile outside the city 
of York. Very often at night, either alone or with 
some of her Catholic neighbors, she would make a 
pilgrimage to this now hallowed spot, in order to spend 

[233] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

some time in prayer where her priests had shed their 
blood. Always she went barefoot, considering the 
way they had gone to their death holy ground. Im- 
agine her, if you can, this tender young wife, putting 
her little ones to bed, and then, close to midnight, 
tramping in her bare feet along the sorrowful way to 
kneel in the darkness beneath the gallows-tree where 
in ages gone by the worst criminals had forfeited 
their lives in payment for their crimes! It was an 
experience to bring terror to a gentle woman, but she 
thought not of the awful dreariness, the horror of the 
place; she thought only that on this spot men had died 
for God. So at the foot of the gallows she and her 
companions knelt in prayer, not mourning the mar- 
tyrs, but thanking God for them, and begging their 
help for themselves and their families, praying for 
their poor country, now gone astray in heresy and 
crime, and even begging God to grant them, too, the 
grace of martyrdom. 

In such devotion these short years went by. All 
the while the laws for the elimination of the very 
name Catholic became more brutal. And, indeed, for 
a long time these laws had been severe enough. Eliza- 
beth, as we have said, in order to make her crown 
more secure, felt obliged to espouse the Protestant 
cause, even while, personally, religion bothered her 
very little. It was in 1559 that the law took effect — 
three years after the birth of Margaret Clitherow — 
abolishing the old worship and setting up the new. 
From that time Catholic worship could be held only 

[234] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

in secret and at the risk of heavy punishment. For 
the first two years, however, there was a tendency not 
to push the law to extremes. Catholics were treated 
with comparative leniency; they were fined occasion- 
ally, had their goods confiscated, or were themselves 
imprisoned. But there was no shedding of blood. 
Elizabeth had the idea then that when the old priests 
died there would be none to take their place, and con- 
sequently the people now remaining Catholics would 
gradually come over to the new religion. 

But she reckoned not with the zeal of the Catholic 
faithful. A seminary was established at Douai, and 
here were trained the missionary priests who for so 
many years, through suffering and death, were to come 
in secrecy to England to break the Bread of Life to 
the Catholics. Such an action roused the wrath of 
Elizabeth, and immediately she increased the severity 
of the penal laws. Catholics who would not acknowl- 
edge her as the Supreme Head of the Church in Eng- 
land were put to death as traitors. But in 1581 a man 
was considered a traitor who absolved or reconciled 
others to the See of Rome, or was willingly absolved 
or reconciled. And even a person who had harbored 
a priest was deemed guilty of treason. In the four 
months between July 22 and November 27, 1588, 
twenty-one of these seminary priests, eleven laymen, 
and one woman — our own Margaret Clitherow — were 
put to death for their religion. The total number of 
Catholics who suffered under Elizabeth was one hun- 
dred and eighty-nine, of which number one hundred 

[235] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and twenty-eight were priests, fifty-eight laymen, and 
three women, the other women being Margaret Ward 
and Anne Line, besides thirty-two Franciscans who 
were starved to death. 

Every one of these martyrs might well be the sub- 
ject of a book as well as Margaret Clitherow, but in 
telling her story of faith we tell the story of them all. 
There was none of them that prayed more earnestly 
for the gift of martyrdom, and at last her prayers were 
answered. 

It was not the first time that a woman's blood had 
flowed in these terrible days of the persecution of the 
Church. Elizabeth was but carrying out the policy of 
her bloodthirsty father. The first woman martyr of 
that period was the Blessed Margaret Pole, who was 
put to death in 1541, in the reign of Henry VIII. She 
was the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, and in 1491 
had been given by King Henry VII in marriage to 
Sir Richard Pole, the son of the half-sister of the 
King's mother, the sainted Margaret Beaufort. Her 
husband had died in 1505, leaving her a widow with 
five children, one of them being Reginald, afterwards 
Cardinal Pole. Henry VIII had great admiration 
for her, and considered her the saintliest woman in 
England. He made her Countess of Salisbury, re- 
stored her property to her, chose her as the sponsor 
for his daughter Mary, and made her governess of 
that princess and her household. There was even talk 
of marrying Mary to Reginald Pole. At the time of 
the divorce Reginald did not scruple about coming 

[236] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

out against it, in spite of the bribes that were offered 
him to side with Henry. He fled to Rome and was 
there made cardinal. By his representation of the case, 
the excommunication of Henry was hastened. When 
Henry's daughter Mary was pronounced illegitimate 
so as to favor the issue of Anne Boleyn, Henry re- 
moved the Countess of Salisbury from her position 
as governess, and she lived in retirement until the 
death of Anne, whereupon she returned to court. 

But Henry was turning against the Poles. Soon 
after the passage of the Act of Supremacy steps were 
taken to despoil the smaller monasteries on any pre- 
text. These monasteries were the only support of 
the poor, and the only places for education, but they 
were suppressed and the monks and nuns thrown out 
on the street to become beggars. The people in the 
North, seeing this, rebelled and, united in an army, 
thirty thousand strong, demanded redress for the 
Church they loved. The government was frightened 
at this display of strength, and promised everything. 
But as soon as the army disbanded the hypocritical 
government turned against those who had rebelled, and 
farmers and yeomen were hanged by the hundreds. 
This was so encouraging to Henry that he determined 
to strike at the Courtenays and the Poles, families 
that were staunch defenders of the Catholic Church. 
Henry Courtenay was next in succession to the crown 
after Henry's children. 

When, in 1530, Cardinal Pole sent to Henry his 
defence of the Church, Henry went into a rage. He 

[237] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

determined to be revenged on tHe Poles and especially 
on the Countess, whom he had once so admired. Her 
eldest son was executed on the evidence given against 
him by a younger brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole, and 
she and others of her relatives were executed. When 
the old woman — she was then nearly ninety — was 
arrested she said nothing, being so old that she 
scarcely knew why she was arrested. She was treated 
with indignity and was kept a prisoner in the Tower 
for two years. And then this noble, saintly old woman, 
herself a royal princess, was sent to the block. She 
walked to her death calmly, her last words being, 
"Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteous- 
ness' sake." 

So that Margaret Clitherow had, besides the ex- 
ample of her good priestly friends, that of a weak 
woman like herself who thought little of the hardships 
that bring one to God. 

It was in 1585, when Elizabeth had been reigning 
twenty-seven years, that there was enforced the statute 
which made it a crime to give shelter to a seminary 
priest or a Jesuit, these men upon whose heads a price 
had been set. Now not only was the priest to be put 
to death, but even the one who harbored him. Some 
of the neighbors, knowing that Mrs. Clitherow was 
accustomed to have priests in her house, came to her 
to warn her of the new law that made her charity a 
crime. Her only answer was: "If God's priests dare 
venture themselves in my house, I will never refuse 
them shelter.'' She had no fear; in fact, being ar- 

[238] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

rested for her faith was no new experience to her. 
Many a time had she been imprisoned, sometimes for 
two years at a time, and there were other Catholic 
wives and mothers who were persecuted in like 
manner. 

One day she asked the advice of her confessor as 
to whether it was right for her to harbor the priests 
without asking her husband's consent; and he assured 
her that it was not only her right but her duty. She 
was overjoyed at the decision. 

"But," said the priest, merrily, "you must prepare 
your neck for the hangman's rope." 

"God's will be done," said she; "but I am most un- 
worthy of that honor." 

But even then there was about to dawn the day 
when God would show this woman that she was 
worthy of the honor. For a long time the Clitherow 
house had been marked as a rendezvous for mission- 
ary priests where the Catholic inhabitants of the city 
might hear Mass and receive the Sacraments. Even 
those who had fallen away from the faith knew that 
almost at any time a priest might be found in some 
secret chamber. But, in spite of all that, she did not 
become cautious. No doubt her apparent boldness was 
merely her confidence in God, her faith that He would 
save her house from harm as long as it was His good 
will. More than that, she had such a winning way 
that even her heretical neighbors could not bring 
themselves to accuse her before the law. There were 
a few% however, so filled with hatred of the old re- 

[239] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ligion that they watched every opportunity to betray 
her. 

She had two rooms fitted up where Mass was said, 
one adjoining her own dwelling and the other at a 
short distance from her house. The latter was used 
only in the very dangerous times, when her own home 
was unsafe. Both chapels were beautifully fitted with 
religious articles, vestments, etc., so much so that the 
authorities were amazed when the discovery was made. 
It was a proof of her wonderful love for the altar of 
God. All that she could spare went to its adornment. 

About a year before her arrest she had induced her 
husband to send their eldest son, Henry, over to 
France, so that he might receive a Catholic education 
in one of the English seminaries abroad, an education 
such as it was impossible to get in England at the time. 
This was deemed a crime, and as soon as it became 
known to the Council which managed such affairs in 
the northern part of the kingdom, they cited John 
Clitherow to appear before them to be questioned as to 
his part in the crime against her Majesty's statutes. 

As soon as he left the house, two sheriffs of the city, 
accompanied by other men, came to search his home. 
His wife was busy about her duties when they arrived. 
She was not surprised at the visit; all these months 
she had expected it. Her fears were not for herself, 
but for the good priest, Father Mush, then in his room 
talking with some Catholics who had come to consult 
him, perhaps to go to confession. Before admitting 
the searchers she managed to go to the room to warn 

[240] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

her dear friends, and to hide them in another secret 
chamber, where they escaped the spies and so saved 
their lives. She was calm as she admitted her enemies. 
They immediately arrested her, and asked her where 
she had secreted the traitor-priests, Mush and Ingleby. 
"I shelter no traitors here," she answered; "the 
members of my household are loyal subjects." But 
the searchers proceeded to search the house for the 
concealed "traitors." There were at that time many 
Catholic children in the house, her own and those of 
the neighbors, for she always dearly loved children, 
being instructed by a schoolmaster, a loyal Catholic 
who had been seven years in prison for the faith. 
Among them was a little Flemish boy whom she 
had charitably taken under her care. The authori- 
ties seized him, and threatened him with death unless 
he told them all that he knew about the visiting priests 
and their hiding-places. The boy, trembling for his 
life, told everything, and led his captors to the secret 
chamber in the house and then to the other chapel 
at a distance, telling them, too, the names of the 
Catholics who from time to time assisted at Mass 
there. They gathered together all the vestments and 
church articles, and carried them away, leading off 
as prisoners Mrs. Clitherow, her two children, and all 
the servants. The children and servants were sent to 
different prisons, but Mrs. Clitherow was brought to 
the Common Hall to be questioned by the Council. 
But, finding the questioning of her useless, they sent 
her a prisoner to the Castle. 

[241] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

It was a loathsome place, that dungeon, filled with 
dirt and swarming with vermin, its only furniture a 
hard pallet, the only food bread and water, which in 
her love of fasting she did not touch. Yet in the 
midst of such squalor she did not grumble, but even 
smiled and was joyous, singing hymns, so much so 
that the jailers were astounded that any woman in 
such circumstances could be so brave. Her only worry 
was for her husband and children, all in prison, and 
for the safety of the priests she had sheltered. Her 
prayer was that her little ones might not be led to 
deny their religion through persecution. And earnest 
was this prayer as she knelt through the night upon 
the cold stone floor, happy to begin her sufferings for 
God. Two days later her sister, Mrs. Ann Tesh, was 
thrown into the same prison for the crime of hearing 
Mass, and kept there till her fine of five hundred marks 
was paid. Strange to say, it was a joyful time, and 
the two sisters, one of them in the shadow of death, 
laughed and made merry as they tried to keep up 
their strength by eating the humble supper of bread 
and water. Those who love God can find joy even 
in affliction, and there were not on earth happier beings 
than those two sisters as they laid them down on the 
hard bed to sleep the sleep of the just. 

It was a beautiful spring day when Margaret was 
led from prison to the Common Hall to be placed 
on trial. The streets were thronged as she walked 
along, most of the multitude filled with sympathy for 
this mother who had been torn from her children. She 

[242] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

did not flinch as she faced the Council, though she 
knew she could expect little justice from these paid 
persecutors. She was accused of harboring priests, of 
hearing Mass, and of sending her son to be educated 
in a foreign Catholic college, and then she was asked 
to plead guilty or not guilty. Margaret Clitherow 
threw back her head and stood erect, a woman of 
striking beauty. 

"I know of no offence," she said, "of which I 
should confess myself guilty." 

Again and again they tried to persuade her to have 
a trial by jury, but she refused. She knew that the 
only witnesses against her would be her servants and 
her own children, and she wished to save them from 
having any part in her condemnation. 

Long did the officials harass her, insulting her re- 
ligion, and then, seeing that their urging was of no 
avail, they ordered her to a private jail, there to await 
sentence. It was night as she was conducted to the 
jail, but the streets were still crowded as she passed 
along, her face beaming with joy while she scattered 
money to the poor, now as always the angel of charity. 

The next day she was brought again before the 
Council. Again they pleaded with her to stand trial. 
Again she refused, and the judge, seeing that it was 
a waste of time to seek to break her will, pronounced 
the terrible sentence. 

"If you will not stand your trial," he said, "this 
must be your sentence. You must return from whence 
you came, and there, in the lowest part of the prison, 

[243] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

be stripped naked, laid down, your back upon the 
ground, as much weight laid on you as you are able 
to bear, and so continue three days without water, and 
the third day to be pressed to death, your hands and 
feet tied to posts, and a sharp stone under your back." 

As this terrible sentence was pronounced, she stood 
with head uplifted, a smile upon her lips, as she said, 
"I thank God heartily for this." 

"Have you no consideration for your husband and 
children?" they asked. 

"I would to God," she said, "my husband and chil- 
dren might suffer with me for so good a cause." 

They bound her hands with ropes, and sent her 
back to jail, where the Protestant ministers and the 
minions of the law vainly tried to shake her faith. 
For several days this situation continued. There was 
dissension in the Council as to putting her to death. 
One of the judges in particular sought to defer action. 
All humanity was not dead in him, for Margaret 
Clitherow was with child, and he dreaded the wrath 
of Heaven in putting to death not only the mother, 
but also her unborn child. But he was not strong in 
character, and feared the wrath of the crown if he 
let pity persuade him against this awful crime; and 
so he tried to assuage his conscience by letting the 
other judges settle the question. And settle it they did. 
Margaret Clitherow was to die. 

Meanwhile the condemned woman was preparing 
for death. Tranquil and cheerful she was, as if in 
her own home instead of the jail. All her time was 

[244] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

spent in prayer, fearing that God might deny her 
the crown of martyrdom which was so near. She 
managed to get word to Father Mush, begging him to 
pray for her martyrdom, and telling him that the 
heaviest cross she had to bear was the fear that she 
would be set free. In those last days she longed to 
see her husband before she died, but they refused her 
this consolation unless she would consent to hear a 
sermon from one of the Protestant ministers, a condi- 
tion to which she would not listen. Her husband 
meanwhile had been let out of prison, but he was 
warned to keep out of the city for some days. When 
he heard that his wife was condemned to death, he 
raved as one mad. 

"Alas! alas!" he cried, "they will kill my poor wife! 
She has been the best wife and the best Catholic in 
the whole country. The Council may have all my 
goods if they will but spare her. ,, 

When one of her neighbors told her this, she said : 
"May God enlighten him to see the true faith, that 
so at least his soul be saved." She sent to him her 
hat as a sign of her duty and obedience to him. At 
the same time she sent her shoes and stockings to her 
daughter Anne, saying, "Tell her they are to remind 
her to serve God and to practise all virtues. I trust 
to God that she will leave this wicked world, so full 
of snares for one so young and fair, and consecrate 
herself to her Divine Spouse in some fervent com- 
munity abroad." Ten years later Anne joined the 

[245] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

English Augustinians at Louvain. Her mother's 
prayers were heard. 

At last the day of her martyrdom dawned. It was 
Good Friday, and also Lady Day, March 25, 1586. 
Through the crowds, congregated to see the strange 
sight of a woman led to slaughter, surrounded by the 
officers of the law and by her executioners, she was 
led from the private jail where she had been guarded 
to the tolbooth, or prison, where she was to lay down 
her life. Four women attendants unrobed her, and 
then put on her a linen garment which she herself 
had made. She lay down upon the ground, and a 
sharp stone was placed under her back. She was calm 
and peaceful, her soul rapt in prayer, so that the very 
light of Heaven shone from her face. So beautiful 
was her countenance that the sheriff ordered a hand- 
kerchief to be spread over it, fearing the effect her 
glorified look would have upon the spectators, many of 
whom were Catholics. A heavy door was then placed 
upon her, her hands were bound to two posts on either 
side, and then every one of the four executioners, at 
the command of the sheriff, raised a heavy weight and 
let it fall forcibly on the door. It was the work of 
barbarians, of devils. Her bones were broken, but 
she made no outcry of pain. 

"Jesu ! Jesu !" she pleaded. "Help me, blessed Jesu ! 
I suffer this for Thy sake." 

She still lived. The sheriff ordered more weights to 
be thrown upon her. The bones burst through the skin. 
She still lived. "Jesu, J esu > Jesu, have mercy on me !" 

[246] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

Those were her last words, the words of one of the 
sweetest and gentlest of women, done to death with 
unbelievable brutality because she would not be false 
to her conscience. 

We are told that her body remained in the press till 
three o'clock in the afternoon. Then the poor blood- 
covered mass was taken out and rolled up roughly in 
a sheet. At midnight the executioners buried the body 
secretly, lest the Catholics might claim her bones as 
relics. And they buried it beneath a dung-heap. Some 
weeks later the Catholics discovered where the body 
had been buried, and in the dead of night rescued it 
from its ignominious grave and brought it, still in- 
corrupt, to some point far distant. There, in a grave 
now unknown, they reverently buried this noble 
woman, Margaret Clitherow, the Pearl of York. 

There are other stories of the heroism of woman- 
hood that could be told of these days. Margaret 
Clitherow was not the last to suffer. How inspiring 
is the story of Margaret Ward! She was companion 
to a Catholic lady of London, and having heard that 
a certain missionary priest, Father William Watson, 
was in jail and in danger of perversion, she determined 
to come to his help. Taking a basket of provisions, she 
bribed the jailer's wife, and so was able to succor the 
poor priest. 

She finally arranged to help him escape, and got 
the aid of a young Irishman, John Roche, to further 
her plans. The priest escaped, but Roche and 
Margaret Ward were arrested. Roche was executed 

[247] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

at Tyburn. Margaret was thrown into prison, where 
she was flogged and hung up by her wrists, the tips of 
her toes only touching the ground, for so long a time 
that she was crippled and paralyzed. Liberty was 
offered her if she would ask the Queen's pardon and 
promise to go to the Protestant church. She declared 
that she had committed no offence against the Queen. 
"With regard to my going to church," she said, "I 
have been convinced for many years that it is not law- 
ful to do so, and I would lay down many lives, if I 
had them, rather than act against my conscience or 
do anything against God and His holy religion." And 
so she was put to death. 

Another woman who was very like Margaret 
Clitherow was Mrs. Anne Line. She was the widow 
of a staunch Catholic who had given up a big estate 
rather than sacrifice his faith and had lived abroad 
until his death. Then she had returned to England, 
and had been chosen to manage a house in which 
priests might find a refuge during the days of persecu- 
tion. She was physically weak. "Though I desire 
above all things to die for Christ," she said to Father 
Gerard, "I dare not hope to die by the hand of the 
executioner ; but perhaps the Lord will let me be taken 
in the same house as a priest, and then be thrown into 
a chill and filthy dungeon, where I shall not be able 
to last out long." 

She was at last arrested for harboring priests and 

asked to plead guilty or not to the charge. 

[248] 



MARGARET CLITHEROW 

"My lords," she exclaimed, "nothing grieves me 
but that I could not receive a thousand more!" 

She was so weak that she had to be carried to court 
in a chair. She was condemned. On the day of her 
execution, kissing the block with joy, she knelt to pray, 
and kept on praying till her head was struck off. This 
was in February, 1601, fifteen years after the death 
of Margaret Clitherow. 

What noble women were they all ! But none is quite 
so appealing as Margaret Clitherow. What a glori- 
ous example is she to the wife and mother ! Her heart 
was filled with love for her husband and her children. 
Yet willingly she parted even from these dear ones, 
willingly let her home be broken up, willingly let her 
little flock be scattered, for the glory of God. When 
God showed her the way of the Cross and commanded 
her to take it, she did not plead that she was a wife 
and mother, that her duty was to stay with them, her 
loved ones that so needed her. No. It was enough 
that God called. He had a greater claim even than 
her little ones. She would seek first the Kingdom of 
God and His justice, knowing that a greater love than 
hers would come to care for her children when she 
was gone, even the love of Him who so loved the 
little ones. 

Blessed the children that have a mother who loves 
God even more than she loves them! 



[249] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 
(1769-1837) 

GOD calls us all to sanctity. It is our blessed 
privilege that we all are the children of God, 
sharers in His abundant graces, and that no matter 
what our state in life, we can aspire to be great in His 
kingdom. Sometimes one is apt to think that the 
present circumstances of life are not conducive to 
sanctity. The mother of a family, for instance, is apt 
to think that the care of her children is an excuse for 
her coldness in the service of God. "How can I be 
devout, let alone aspire to sanctity," she asks, "when 
all my life is filled with the cares of the home? Now 
if I were in a convent, I would have more time to give 
to God, and I am sure that in such an atmosphere of 
sanctity my soul would grow in holiness/' Always 
the same old excuse — if I were somebody else, I would 
be better than I am now. 

But that is only a way to deaden the conscience. 
A woman — even while we know that the virgin life in 
itself is a higher life — may be married,, may be the 
mother of many children, may be obliged to lead a 
life that is full of the trivialities incident to the bring- 
ing up of those children, may find her days but "the 

[250] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

trivial round, the common task" of baking and clean- 
ing and mending, may have to struggle against poverty, 
and yet may so use that life that it becomes doubly 
dear in the sight of God. There have been great saints 
who have been great mothers, toiling mothers, ordinary 
mothers in the eyes of the world. From every walk 
of life they come, these saints of God, so that we all, 
no matter what our station in life, may take courage 
in doing His work. After all, the Queen of all saints 
was a mother, — Mary, the Mother of God. Hers was 
a humble life, a humdrum life if you will, a life of 
simple duty, — the handmaid of the Lord. And while 
there is a vast difference between the life of the Mother 
of God and the life of the mothers of men, still may 
the mothers of men look to her to learn from her 
motherhood the way to sanctify their own. 

And so that we may not be discouraged by the 
sight of her great glory, God has raised up lesser 
glories of motherhood in order that mothers may emu- 
late them, knowing that what has been possible to the 
saintly mothers raised to the altars of God is still pos- 
sible to the most lowly mother of to-day. 

The story of Anna Maria Taigi is a glorious one for 
this reason — it is a glorification of the simple life, the 
life of a poor woman, the mother of seven children, 
with all the cares which that implies, yet of one who, 
while neglecting none of her duties to her family, 
realized that even more than to them her first duty 
was to God and her own soul. 

The whole of this woman's life is well summed up 
[251] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

in the Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites re- 
garding her beatification and canonization. It may be 
taken as a sketch which we shall try to fill in later. 
It reads : "He who, when He would show forth His 
power and wisdom, hath been wont for the most part 
to use the weak and foolish things of the world to 
confound the haughtiness of man, to frustrate the de- 
signs of the impious, and bring to naught the efforts 
of hell, hath in this our age, when human pride and 
infernal power have seemed to combine to subvert, 
if it were possible, the foundations, not only of the 
Church, but even of civil society itself, opposed a 
poor, weak woman to the floods of impiety bursting 
in on every side. He hath employed for this work 
Anna Maria Antonia Gesualda Taigi, born, indeed, of 
honest parentage, but poor, married to a common man, 
hampered with the cares of a family, and fain to seek 
wherewith to support herself and them by the constant 
labor of her hands. This woman, whom He hath 
chosen for Himself to be an attracter of souls, a vic- 
tim of expiation, a bulwark against plots, a warder- 
off of evils by her prayers, He hath first cleansed from 
the dust of this world and then hath united to Him- 
self by the strictest bond of charity, hath adorned with 
wonderful gifts, and hath replenished with such vir- 
tues as to draw to her on all sides, not pious persons 
only, from every rank of society up to the very highest, 
but even the impious themselves, and to inspire all 
with the highest opinion of her sanctity." 

It is remarkable that the cause of this poor woman, 
[252] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

who died in 1837, was introduced in 1862, only twenty- 
five years afterwards, at a time when her husband 
and some of her children were still living, a proof at 
least of the reputation for sanctity she enjoyed among 
her neighbors. 

Her maiden name was Giannetti. She was the only 
child of Luigi Giannetti, who was by profession an 
apothecary in the city of Siena. He and his wife, 
Santa Maria Masi, were people in good circumstances, 
highly respected by their friends, Giannetti being espe- 
cially noted for his absolute honesty and trustworthi- 
ness in his business. 

The child was born May 29, 1769, and was baptized 
the next day, receiving the name of Anna Maria 
Antonia Gesualda. The little girl was barely six years 
of age when misfortune came upon her parents. They 
lost all they had of this world's goods, and rather than 
face poverty among those who knew them in their 
days of prosperity, they left Siena and came to Rome, 
where, too, the apothecary knew there would be a 
better chance for him to get employment. So poor 
were they that they had to make the journey on foot, 
and yet we can well believe that the hand of God was 
directing them in what they considered a severe trial. 

Giannetti and his wife soon found employment as 
domestic servants, and took a small lodging in humble 
quarters. Their hearts were centered in their little 
daughter, who was a pretty child of attractive man- 
ners. They gave her an excellent education, as far 
as they could, sending her to the nuns to school, with 

[253] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

whom she soon proved to be a great favorite. But bet- 
ter than all else, the good nuns as well as the parents 
laid in the child's heart the deep foundations of solid 
piety. The parents, before going to work, took her 
with them to Mass every morning, while at home they 
faithfully trained her childish lips to pray and to re- 
peat often the names of Jesus and Mary. 

Those years of childhood were uneventful. She was 
simply a poor child of poor parents. She would have 
to make her living in the world; and so, when she 
was thirteen, she was taken from the good nuns who 
had taught her so many things to be of service to her 
in later life, and put to live with two old women, along 
with other girls, where her work was to wind silk in 
preparation for manufacture. She made a few cents 
a week at this work, which she gave to her parents. 
For six years she was thus employed, and then she got 
tired of it and wanted to come back home to help her 
mother. She was now a young woman, grown tired 
— an*d no wonder! — of the humdrum life of silk- 
weaving. She wanted, too, to see something of the 
world. She loved dress, and later reproached herself 
that during these days she was vain of her personal 
appearance. Still, withal, she remained a good, virtu- 
ous girl, an ordinary, good Catholic girl, faithful to 
her religious duties, but with no remarkable piety. Her 
parents succeeded in placing her as lady's-maid in the 
house where they were still employed as domestics. 
She was under their protecting eyes, and yet an attrac- 
tive, refined girl like Anna was not free from danger. 

[254] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

She realized this, knew the temptations, and as a re- 
sult was more earnest in her prayers, more ready to 
seek the advice of her confessor, who counseled her to 
marry. 

She was about twenty-one when she was married 
to Domenico Taigi. He was descended from a good, 
even an illustrious Milanese family, but was a poor 
man, a domestic servant. He was, however, a good 
man, religious and of excellent character. But he was 
uneducated, even a rustic boor, far inferior to his 
young wife in point of breeding, and so in many cases 
a trial to her. 

He asked for her hand. They both prayed to ascer- 
tain the will of God, and finally, after a month, they 
were united in a marriage which, with all its trials, 
proved particularly happy. She was loving, faithful, 
industrious, and studied all his wishes. He was proud 
of his beautiful young wife, and liked to show her 
to his friends. She was gay and happy, attractive and 
vain of her beauty and her dress. But all the while she 
was displeased at her own worldliness, for she felt 
in her heart that God was seeking to draw her to a 
more devout life. 

One day, when she was praying in St. Peter's, the 
grace of God touched her. She realized her vanity 
and frivolity, her passion for amusement, and de- 
termined to put it all aside. She had not committed 
any serious sin, but she felt that such a frivolous life 
was wrong. From the day she made her confession 
to the Servite priest, Father Angelo, to whom God 

[255] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

had led her almost miraculously, this young wife of 
twenty-two entered upon the road to perfection, from 
the pursuit of which she was never to swerve during 
the long years of her married life. She put aside the 
life of pride and pleasure for the life of mortification. 
When she returned home from confession, she threw 
herself before the crucifix and scourged herself, and 
struck her head against the floor many times, exclaim- 
ing, "Satisfy to God, impure head, for so many frivo- 
lous ornaments with which you have dared to adorn 
yourself/' God rewarded this self-abasement with 
many graces, and in particular with the gift of a 
luminous disc in which, as in a mirror, she saw the 
past, present, and future, a gift which she enjoyed for 
the remaining forty-seven years of her life. Shortly 
afterwards she was given the power of healing with 
the touch of her hand, could read the secret thoughts 
of others, was granted the privilege of ecstasies, and 
all this at the very beginning of her conversion to a 
more earnest life. God thus rewarded early her love 
for Him. 

At once she put aside all her ornaments of vanity, 
her rings, her ear-rings, necklaces, and fine clothes, 
and dressed herself in the commonest and coarsest of 
garments. She joined the Third Order of the Trini- 
tarians, and wore the habit under her other clothes. 
She put aside all her worldly amusements and even 
denied herself the simple pleasure of visits to her 
friends. There was no half way about her giving her- 
self to God. She punished herself, used the discipline, 

[256] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

wore a hair shirt, and even an iron chain. She fasted 
rigorously, sometimes for a period of forty days, and 
went for days without a drink of water, a terrible 
penance in a hot climate, and especially for one who 
worked as hard as she. As she used to say, "The 
more greedy the ass is, the more needful is it to draw 
the rein tight." She mortified her sight, too, and was 
as modest as a young girl. Not only did she not criti- 
cize anybody, but she would allow no one to make in 
her presence depreciating remarks about others. 

"My mother," said one of her daughters, "scarcely 
slept at all. She spent most of the night in prayer, 
and was up early in the morning to go to Mass, after 
having slept but two hours." In a word, she lived in 
God and for God. "To acquire the love of God," she 
used to say, "we must always be rowing against the 
current, and never cease counteracting our own will." 

If this woman had not been married, no doubt she 
would have entered the religious life. It is useless, 
however, to speculate on that, for it was the will of 
God that she should be a wife and mother, no doubt, 
in order that she might show that it is possible to lead 
a holy life even in the lowliest surroundings. And 
this poor woman became, says one of her biographers, 
"the rampart of the Holy See, the oblation of sinners, 
the consolation of the afflicted, the succorer of the 
poor, the guider of the learned, and the counselor of 
priests; she was a theologian, a doctor, a mother in 
Israel, a seer of the ancient days, an inspired prophet, 
a true wonder-worker." What a panegyric for a poor, 

[257] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

hard-working mother of seven children! Yet it was 
because she was a devoted wife and mother, faithful 
to the duties of her home, that God raised her to 
such heights. 

Her religious ardor was never an excuse for neglect 
of duty. Not even her husband or her children knew 
to what heights of sanctity she had reached. It was 
only after her death that her instruments of self- 
mortification were discovered. Her penances, like her 
trials, she hid in her own heart. 

And she had her trials. She was refined and sensi- 
tive; her husband was rough, coarse, and uncouth. 
He was self-willed, easily angered, and would fly into 
a rage if contradicted. She never argued with him 
or contradicted him. She was always patient, silent 
when He was angry, and in such a way that he soon 
became ashamed of himself, fearing that he had dis- 
tressed her. 

Domenico Taigi, with all his faults, had a good 
heart. His wife always sought to please him, would 
even set aside her devotions in order to accompany 
him or to do some service for him. As he said, long 
after she had died, at the time of the opening of the 
process of her beatification — he was then ninety-two — 
"I always found her as docile and submissive as a 
lamb." It was a touching tribute to a loving wife, 
words that could be taken to heart by many wives of 
to-day, when we are hearing so much about women's 
rights and so little about their duties. 

And this docility and simplicity on her part are all 
[258] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

the more remarkable when one knows that the humble 
home was always crowded with persons of distinction, 
ecclesiastical and lay, come to seek her advice ; for by 
her great sanctity, her charity to the sick and poor, her 
ecstasies in the churches, and her ability to give the 
soundest advice, she was renowned all over Rome. 

And yet, in spite of that popularity, her first thought 
was for her husband. "It happened to me frequently," 
he said, "when coming home to change my clothes, 
that I found the house full. Immediately she would 
leave everybody, whatever lord or prelate might be 
there, and hasten to me with the greatest cheerfulness 
and pleasure, that she might brush my things and 
wait upon me, even to the tying of my shoe-strings. 
In short, she was my consolation, and that of all the 
world." 

In her he had the greatest confidence. "I let her 
manage everything," he said, "because I saw that she 
acquitted herself perfectly of the task." Yet she 
would never do anything unusual without first of all 
consulting him. What a simple tribute are the words 
of the old man of ninety-two, looking back 'over the 
past happy years. "She was always cheerful and 
pleasant," he said ; "yet she had a host of maladies. 
This, however, did not hinder her from putting her 
hand to work; she looked to everything and had 
hands of gold. As for me, I did not give a thought 
to anything. She made pantaloons for me, and over- 
coats. I do not well know how to express myself. To 
cut the matter short, I am old ; but if I were young, 

[259] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

and were minded to travel over the whole earth to 
find such a woman, it would be impossible to meet with 
her. I have lost a great treasure." 

She was the mother of seven children, four boys 
and three girls. Camillo, the eldest, died at the age of 
forty-two; Alessandro at thirty-five; Luigi at a year 
and a half; and Pietro at two years. Two of the 
daughters were living at the time of the process of her 
beatification, one unmarried, the other a widow. 

It can be easily believed that this mother, holy as 
she was, took a deep interest in her children. She 
nursed all of them, taught them their catechism, and 
instructed them how to read and write. Morning and 
night, the whole family had prayers together, and al- 
ways she taught the children to thank God that they 
had been born in the Catholic Church. She prepared 
them for Confession and Communion, and saw that 
the girls frequented the sacraments once a week, and 
the boys two or three times a month. 

She arranged that all the boys should learn a trade 
according to their station in life. She had no foolish 
ideas about their becoming wealthy. The girls she 
sent to school. Over them all she exercised a watchful 
care. She guarded their modesty even in their own 
home, and kept them from bad companionship. In a 
word, she was a hard-working, prudent, common-sense 
mother, devoted to her children. "I will save your 
children," Our Lord said to her one day, "because 
they are of your blood, because they are poor, and the 

[260] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

poor are my friends. Yes, I will save them, although 
they have many faults." 

She did not hesitate to punish the children when 
they needed correction. She always insisted that they 
give their father strict obedience. She would allow 
no one to criticize others in the presence of the chil- 
dren. In fact, she would not listen to remarks about 
others, anyway, and especially about priests. "They 
are God's ministers," she would say, "and therefore 
always worthy of our respect; at the hour of death 
whom shall we need save the priest?" And this rever- 
ence for priests she instilled into the hearts of her 
children. 

It was a happy household, a home simple in its 
furnishings, — poor, even, — but rich in its simple, un- 
affected piety. As soon as she awoke the children in 
the morning, they all would kneel about the little altar 
and say their morning prayers, together with her old 
mother, who lived with them. And after supper all 
would gather and listen to the reading of some pious 
book, and then before retiring there would be family 
prayers, the recitation of the Rosary, and other devo- 
tions. In her family God was the first consideration. 
And yet it was not a gloomy household. There was 
nothing unhappy about her. She was always pleasant, 
always could enjoy a good joke, and always sought to 
provide simple amusement for the children, taking 
them on picnics and otherwise seeking to make them 
light-hearted. 

We get a good picture of her as manager of the 
[261] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

home. Her husband received small wages, scarcely 
two dollars a month, so one can imagine how she had 
to plan in order to bring up her large family. She 
always stood and served the others while they sat at 
meals. Difficulties came upon the family when the 
husband lost his position through the removal to Paris 
of the family he worked for, at the time the French 
army in 1798 occupied Rome. It was discouraging 
to Domenico, but the wife urged him to put his trust 
in God ; and then, to help out in the care of the family's 
support, she learned to make women's shoes and stays 
and worked at the new trade night and day. So suc- 
cessful was she that soon she was able not only to 
support her own family, but also to feed a great num- 
ber of' poor people. 

It was at this time that she met the Princess Maria 
Luisa, afterwards Queen of Etruria, who came to her 
assistance in helping the poor. It was the time of 
the terrible famine in Rome, and Mrs. Taigi, delicate 
of health, through the long cold days would stand in 
the bread-line before the baker's so that her children 
should not go hungry. Yet she was always calm and 
patient. She was never idle, and even when confined 
to the bed with torturing illness would do the family 
mending. 

Besides the care of the children, she also had the 
care of her father and mother, who in their old days 
had been obliged to give up their work. The mother 
was hard to get along with, a woman with a bad 
temper, but her daughter was ever kind to her and 

[262] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

tended her devotedly to the end. So, too, with her 
father. In the last years of his life he was afflicted 
with a horrible leprosy, but she would wash and comb 
him and attend to all his wants. Added to that, her 
son Camillo brought his wife to live with them, a 
woman who was a trial, since she wanted to be the 
mistress of the house, always looking for trouble. 
And then, when her daughter Sofia lost her husband, 
she came with her six children to live with her parents. 
It was a patriarchal way of living, but it brought its 
trials. Yet the good mother who was the head of 
the house never complained, but tried to make every- 
body feel at home. 

To bear such trials and petty hardships she needed 
a lively faith. And surely she had that. She ever 
thanked God for the gift of faith, and had the utmost 
reverence for everybody and everything connected 
with religion. She had a special devotion to the 
Blessed Trinity, and soon after her conversion, as we 
have seen, became a member of the Third Order of 
Discalced Trinitarians, founded in 1198 for the re- 
demption of captives, which may be called a religious 
order for those who live in the world. 

And with it all there was that same confidence in 
God which knows that He will help those who help 
themselves and pray. "She did not," says her hus- 
band, "wait for the basket to come down from heaven 
without doing anything herself. She joined labor to 
prayer in order not to tempt God by seeming to ex- 
pect that He would work a miracle for her. When 

[263] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

she found herself in a position of real necessity, she 
addressed herself to God with all the greater confi- 
dence, and the Lord helped her so well that the main- 
tenance of her numerous family without their ever suf- 
fering want was a continual miracle." And then he 
asks very simply, "What could I do with my salary, 
if I had not the servant of God?" 

It was all her simple trust in the providence of God. 
They were always on the verge of poverty, but always 
managed to get along. The wealthy who came to 
the house to consult with her wished to make presents 
to her, but she would have none of that. God was 
the only help she wanted. Even when her daughter 
Sofia brought home her six children to increase the 
family burden, and began to weep and to wonder 
how they would all be fed, she was reproached by 
her mother. "What are you thinking about?" she 
asked. "You must know that God never abandons 
any one. You will have what you need. Place your 
trust in God, and give no thought to anything else ; as 
for me, I will never forsake you." 

One day, when she called to see the Princess Luisa, 
the latter opened a drawer full of gold, and said to 
her: "Take, take, Nanna mia, what you will." But 
the poor woman merely smiled and answered : "How 
simple you are, madam ! I serve a Master richer than 
you. I trust and hope in Him; and He provides for 
my daily necessities." It was not pride that made her 
refuse help from others; it was just her simple trust 
in God and her desire to remain always poor. 

[264] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

Later on, when she was unable to work, the family 
was in great poverty, and, painful as the humiliation 
was, the poor woman had to accept alms. She was 
poor in everything but the grace of God. And how 
rich she was in that! She lived in the presence of 
God, and endeavored to please Him in all things. 
This love of God made her endure physical and mental 
suffering, calumnies, contempt, harshness, not merely 
with resignation, but with joy. Her life was one long 
martyrdom gladly borne. Hers was a soul that God 
loved exceedingly, and He showered His choicest 
blessings upon it. Sometimes, when she was busy 
sweeping the floor or cooking, she would go into an 
ecstasy. At times even the note of a bird would trans- 
port her, so tenderly did she love God. Yet some of 
her neighbors, seeing these things, used to say that 
she was possessed, or that she was a hypocrite. Even 
her husband used to think, when these ecstasies came 
upon her, that she had a fit of convulsions, and would 
try to shake her out of them. So little even he 
suspected the wonders God was working in the soul 
of this humble wife of his. 

And through it all was her intense hatred of sin. 
She told her confessor that rather than commit a 
venial fault, she would mount a scaffold and endure 
all its shame, together with the infliction of every con- 
ceivable torture. As her love for God, so her love 
for her neighbor. Even out of her poverty she helped 
the poor, spending some of her time at night working 
for them, taking into her house the chance wanderer 

[ 265 ] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

to feed and clothe, always seeing in the poor Jesus 
Christ Himself. "Never send the poor away," she 
would say to her family; "when you have nothing else, 
give them a bit of bread." When sent for by the sick, 
she always went, no matter what the weather. And 
she was always being sent for. She had a special gift 
for consoling the afflicted, and if she found poverty 
she would herself go begging alms for the destitute 
ones, and even take the bread out of her own mouth 
to succor them. 

Hers was a charity that extended even to the dumb 
animals. "These poor beasts have no paradise save 
in this world," she would say, and would even use 
the power she had to cure them. It is said that she 
would leave her own dinner to feed a hungry cat. She 
saw all animals as creatures of God. In her was 
renewed that love for animals so characteristic of St. 
Francis. 

If there was one virtue for which she was especially 
noted, it was her patience. Sometimes her neighbors 
insulted her, so much so that the angered Domenico 
had to defend her. But the more she was insulted, 
the more she rejoiced. For years she endured bodily 
ills, constant sick-headaches, neuralgia, rheumatism, 
asthma, gout — in fact, all the ills to which the flesh is 
heir. But never a murmur from her. Despite her 
sufferings, she kept at her devotions. She had a spe- 
cial devotion to the Infancy and Passion of Our Lord 

and to the Blessed Sacrament. And she had a tender 

[266] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the poor souls in 
Purgatory. 

Many a sinner she converted, offering up herself 
in expiation, and God accepted the sacrifice, sending 
her all manner of trials, and permitting her to be 
sorely beset with temptations of every kind. 

It was a time of trial for the Church, a time of perse- 
cution, and she was a victim of penance for the sins 
of the world and for the evils affecting the Church. 

But with her sufferings God gave her great priv- 
ileges. There is no doubt, in reading her life, that 
she had the gift of prophecy, and also worked miracles 
of healing. "Anna Maria the Saint," was what the 
people called her, and high and low came to her, 
begging her advice and her prayers. 

For eight months before her death she was con- 
fined to her bed of pain — of torture, rather — for every 
member suffered as if on a rack. And with what 
patience ! 

She did not fear death. She even announced her 
approaching end to her family with great cheerfulness. 
Then she called Domenico, her husband, and thanked 
him with tenderness for all the care he had taken 
of her, and all his kindness to her. Then she called 
her children and gave each of them advice. "My chil- 
dren," she said, "have Jesus Christ always before you ; 
let His Precious Blood be ever the object of your ven- 
eration. You will have to suffer much, but sooner 
or later the Lord will console you. Keep His com- 

[267] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

mandments, cherish devotion to the most Holy Virgin, 
who will be your mother in my place/' 

She left them nothing; rather, she left them poverty. 
But she did not bemoan that. She knew that God 
would take care of them. 

And so, in poverty and alone, the good wife and 
mother died in 1837, at the age of sixty-eight. On 
that occasion the following letter was written by her 
confessor, Father Filippo, to the Pope's vicar, Car- 
dinal Odescalchi : "It is very just and proper season- 
ably to reveal the works of God, for His greater glory 
and for the edification of the faithful. Yesterday, 
Friday, the ninth of the current month (June), passed 
to eternal rest the soul of Anna Maria Taigi, who lived 
in the parish of Santa Maria in Via Lata. I know 
that the secretary of his Eminence Cardinal Barberini, 
D. Raffaele Natali, who has lived with her nearly 
twenty years, has addressed, in conjunction with other 
persons, a petition to your Eminence, to the intent that 
regard should be had to the body of this holy woman, 
which merits all respect. As for me, who have been 
her confessor for more than thirty years, until the day 
before yesterday, when she received the last sacra- 
ments, I believe myself to be bound in conscience to 
make known to your Eminence that not only did she 
exercise the Christian virtues in an heroic degree, but 
that God favored her also with special graces and 
extraordinary gifts, which will excite admiration, 
should it please God to publish them authentically be- 
fore the whole Church, as I hope. I should have 

[268] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

much to say on this head. I content myself with testi- 
fying to the charity of this holy soul, which constituted 
itself as a victim before God, and which obtained 
signal graces for Rome. I hope that God will cause 
this to be recognized later. The mortal remains, there- 
fore, of so virtuous a soul, and one so highly esteemed 
by Pius VII and Leo XII, by Monsignore Strambi, 
Monsignore Menacchio, and a crowd of persons of 
every rank and every country who obtained extraor- 
dinary graces through her intervention, seem to merit 
special regard, in accordance with the constant practice 
of the Church." 

The same priest said : "Well, a woman replenished 
with so many merits, virtues, and supernatural gifts 
lives unknown and dies abandoned by every one ; hav- 
ing round her bed of suffering only a poor family 
whom she leaves in destitution, and recommends to a 
priest, equally poor, who is to continue collecting daily 
alms for them. She blesses her children, and leaves 
them, as her sole bequest, piety, religion, devotion to 
the Virgin, to the saints, and particularly to St. Philo- 
mena, her patroness, whom she constituted the 
guardian and protectress of her poor and numerous 
family. After which, recollected in God and animated 
by the fortitude which resignation imparts, she drinks 
to the very last drop the bitter chalice of a painful 
death." 

When this poor woman died there was universal 
sorrow throughout the city as soon as the sad news 
was learned. "The saint is dead," was heard on all 

[269] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

sides. High and low visited the house where she had 
died, and many, in spite of the fear of cholera then 
prevalent, went to pray at her tomb. Her work went 
on even after her death. The sick were healed through 
her intercession, sinners converted, and many other 
graces granted. So general was the opinion of her 
sanctity, that the Cardinal Vicar commissioned Raf- 
faele Natali to collect all the documents relative to 
her life. When her biography was written shortly 
afterwards, seventeen thousand copies of it were sold 
in Rome alone. It was translated into many languages 
and spread over all the world. 

For eighteen years the body lay in the common 
cemetery, and then there arose a desire to remove it 
into Rome. It was found incorrupt, and the clothes 
in perfect preservation. It was then placed in the 
Church of Santa Maria della Pace. Ten years later, 
on the occasion of the removal of the body to its 
last resting-place in the Church of the Trinitarians, it 
was still incorrupt. Her tomb was ever after a shrine 
at which the faithful prayed. The process of her beati- 
fication was begun in 1863, and it has not yet been 
finished. 

So passed a poor, simple woman; so passed a 
great servant of God. What an example, we say, to 
all, but especially to the mothers of whom she may 
well be patroness! What mother ever had a harder 
life, one of continual toil, continual pain? Yet she 
was always rapt in God. Faithful to her husband, 

[270] 



THE VENERABLE ANNA MARIA TAIGI 

faithful to her children, and, above all, faithful to 
God, surely the venerable Anna Maria Taigi under- 
stands the difficulties of mothers, and will help those 
that pray to her. 



[271] 



ELIZABETH SETON 
(1774-182 i) 

THE Catholic Church is comparatively young in 
this country. Her history here is but as the 
story of a day in her long life. But it is a story to 
thrill the heart of her children. We have had our 
martyrs for the truth, many of them; we have had our 
confessors of the faith, confessors without number, 
The same spirit of religion which has made saints of 
God in the Old World has made them in the New. 
From every quarter of the globe our people have come, 
and in every quarter of the globe has flourished that 
faith that makes saints. The old countries have their 
national litany of saints. It is the growth of the ages. 
But are we to be less blessed than they? Are we to 
have no special litany of our own? We cannot think 
that. The ages of faith are not to be confined to one 
people or one period. The Litany of the Saints is not 
a sealed book of the dead past. It is a never-ending 
scroll to be written on until the day of judgment. "A 
great multitude, which no man could number, of all 
nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, stand- 
ing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, 
clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." 

(Apocalypse vii, 9.) 

[272] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

We have scarcely begun to make our own national 
litany. The Church, which knows herself to be of 
and for all time, is never in a hurry. She thinks in 
centuries, rather in eternity, not in days. Sometimes 
she has canonized her saints almost before the body 
was cold in death ; sometimes she has waited for cen- 
turies to pass before raising them to her altars. In 
God's own good time it is all done. It is not for us 
to anticipate the judgment of the Church. The mak- 
ing of a saint is a wonderful thing. No human power, 
no admiration even for service done to the Church, 
can place man or woman on that Church's calendar. 
Even the great Constantine, who was so blessed with 
heavenly vision and heavenly aid, to whom the Church 
owed so much, is still but Constantine the Great, not 
St. Constantine. 

But we may hope — we have, indeed, every reason 
to hope, judging from the past — that America, too, 
will have its saints. And surely we may hope and 
pray that one day we may, after Holy Church, give the 
glorious name of saint to that noble woman of our 
own land, wife and mother and religious, Elizabeth 
Bayley Seton. 

Her maiden name was Elizabeth Bayley, and she 
was born in New York City on August 28, 1774, at 
a time when New York was still an English colony, 
a short time, as the date shows, before the outbreak 
of the Revolutionary War. 

Her grandfather had come as a young man of 
good English family to make a tour of the American 

[273] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

colonies some years before, at a time when the colonies 
were deeply attached to the mother country. He met 
his fate on that tour in the person of a young lady 
of New Rochelle named Lecomte, descended from one 
of the Huguenot families which had settled that place. 

One of his sons was Richard Bayley, who became 
a doctor, and was later the first professor of anatomy 
at Columbia (then King's) College. After the war, 
during which he had been a staunch royalist, he was 
appointed health officer of the port of New York, and 
filled that office in an admirable manner. It was a 
tribute to his character that in spite of his former 
political affiliations he was deemed worthy of the ap- 
pointment. In 1 78 1, when Sir Guy Carleton succeeded 
Clinton as commander-in-chief of the British forces in 
America, he had joined his army as surgeon. And so 
close was his friendship with Carleton that he called 
one of his sons Guy Carleton Bayley, who became the 
father of James Roosevelt Bayley, who at Rome in 
1842 became a convert from the Episcopal Church, and 
was later noted as Archbishop of Baltimore. 

Young Dr. Bayley married Catharine Charlton, 
daughter of an Episcopalian clergyman of Staten 
Island. Three daughters were born to them, Mary, 
Elizabeth Ann, and Catharine, and then in 1777 the 
young wife died. Dr. Bayley was devoted to his little 
ones, and for that reason, perhaps, more than any 
other, he married again, taking for his second wife 
a Miss Barclay of a well-known New York family. 
She was a good mother to the two stepchildren — -little 

[274] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

Catharine had died at the age of two — and Elizabeth 
especially loved her. 

We get a charming picture of the little Elizabeth 
when she was nine years old, after the dread days of 
the war had passed. She tells us herself of the visits 
she used to make to her mother's people in the coun- 
try. "I delighted to sit alone by the waterside," she 
writes, "or to wander for hours on the shore, singing 
and gathering shells. Every little leaf and flower, or 
insect, animal, shades of clouds, or waving trees, were 
objects of vacant, unconnected thoughts of God and 
heaven." 

Even in those young days the grace of God was 
working in the soul of her who later on was to do 
such great work in His kingdom. She was her father's 
favorite, and much of her strong character was due 
to his loving interest in her, and withal his firmness 
in the manner of educating her. Even in her child- 
hood it is said that she edified her elders by her recol- 
lection and fervor in the services of the Episcopal 
Church, of which her stepmother was a devout mem- 
ber. It was this good woman who gave Elizabeth a 
taste for the Bible, a book she loved and read daily, 
together with the Imitation of Christ. And even as a 
child, she tells us, the crucifix was especially dear to 
her. One is surprised at the Catholic spirit of the child, 
seeing her writing out every night her examination of 
conscience, a practice she kept up even when she was 
grown and had taken her place in the brilliant New 
York society of those days. 

[275] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

It was a time when little attention was paid to the 
education of girls, but Elizabeth managed to get more 
than her share by browsing in her father's excellent 
library, a course which had its dangers, too, consider- 
ing that the Doctor's library contained many infidel 
books. But God kept innocent and religious the soul 
of this little girl who was trying so hard to do His will. 

Elizabeth at an early age took her place in society. 
New York even then had its very exclusive circle, 
wealthy, brilliant, and refined. The beauty and smart- 
ness of Elizabeth Bayley made her a favorite at once. 
One of her biographers describes her as she looked 
at that time. She was small in stature, with finely 
cut features, slenderly and gracefully formed. Her 
face, lit by brilliant black eyes, inherited no doubt from 
her Huguenot grandmother, was framed in masses of 
dark, curling hair, arranged in the simple, graceful 
fashion of the close of the eighteenth century. Com- 
bined with this youthful loveliness was the charm im- 
parted by intelligence of mind, perfect womanliness, 
and vivacity, which was no doubt also a heritage from 
her French ancestry. 

It is not strange that this beautiful young woman 
of fine family, vivacious, educated, ready to take her 
part in everything, an accomplished horsewoman even, 
soon attracted the attention of men. But of all the 
suitors young William Seton, son of a wealthy 
merchant of New York, won the prize. He had spent 
several years abroad, had served in the business house 
of the Filicchis in Leghorn, Catholic gentlemen of 

[276] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

wonderfully great faith, who were to be the cause, 
under God, of Elizabeth's conversion, and besides that, 
he had traveled extensively, and was therefore well 
equipped to win his way into the heart of such a girl 
as Elizabeth Bayley. 

They were married in January, 1794, when Eliza- 
beth was a few months over nineteen years of age. It 
was a happy marriage. William Seton was an ex- 
cellent man. He adored his wife, and she responded 
with a like adoration. The young husband took his 
wife to live with his own family in the big New York 
mansion which was like a patriarchal establishment. 
Elizabeth was at once a favorite with all, from her 
father-in-law, who made her his confidante, to her 
husband's many brothers and sisters. The oldest of 
the unmarried ones became "the friend of her soul." 
She was deeply spiritual like Elizabeth, and devoted 
to charity. Often the two were to be seen making 
visits to the poor, until at last they came to be lovingly 
called "the Protestant Sisters of Charity.' ' 

In the fall after the marriage the young couple went 
to live in a house of their own, and here in the fol- 
lowing May, 1795, their first child, little Anna Maria, 
was born. Their cup of joy was now full. 

But the happy marriage did not remain long un- 
clouded; for in the summer of 1796 the husband's 
health began to fail. To this affliction was added the 
fear of business troubles, threatening the ruin of the 
house of Seton, so long prosperous. And meanwhile a 
second child, William, was born. The elder Seton died 

[277] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

under the strain of financial difficulties, and William 
Seton and his wife took charge of the family mansion 
and assumed the burden of caring for the many little 
ones whom the elder Seton — he had been married 
twice — had left. It was a heavy task for them, but 
they did not complain. It was their duty, nothing 
more. Who knows what great graces were given to 
Elizabeth Seton for this work of mothering the or- 
phans? It was here that, in 1798, their third child, 
Richard, was born. 

The young mother had no easy life in those days. 
Not only did she have her own little ones to mother, 
but she had also to care for those that were not her 
own. So devoted was she even to those who were not 
her own flesh and blood that she inspired a devoted 
love in them. Her husband's little sisters, Harriet, 
then eleven, and Cecelia, seven, were particularly fond 
of her, the beginning of that attachment to her which 
ended in both of them later on becoming Catholics, 
following her example, and moved to it, under, the 
grace of God, by their complete confidence that what 
she did was always right. 

In June, 1800, the fourth child, Catharine, was born, 
and at the same time William Seton was financially 
overwhelmed by new disasters at sea, It was a time 
of worry for the young mother, a time of sorrow in- 
creased by the death of her own father, whom she so 
deeply loved. He had been a man of little religion, 
and the devout daughter feared for his eternal future, 
a fear so great that she often raised the new-born 

[278] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

infant from the cradle and offered its life to God for 
the salvation of her father's soul. Before his death, 
she tells us, he spoke several times the Holy Name of 
Jesus, which he had never before done, and so passed 
away, a man of upright life and of wonderful charity 
to the afflicted, having projected and conducted for five 
years a Lazaretto on Staten Island. Somehow his 
death brought Elizabeth nearer to God, and she sought 
more and more to know and do God's will. In 1802 
the fifth and last child was born, whom she named 
Rebecca, after her beloved sister-in-law and compan- 
ion in charity. 

Meanwhile William Seton, worn out by business 
troubles, decided to take a trip to Italy for his health, 
and Elizabeth, knowing that he was not fit to go alone, 
prepared to go with him. And so, in October, 1800, 
after dismantling their home, they took passage for 
Leghorn, facing a long, hazardous voyage in a sailing- 
vessel of the period, and bringing with them their eld- 
est child, little Anna, then eight years of age. 

Yellow fever had been prevalent in New York, and 
when the vessel arrived at Leghorn the Setons, who 
were the only passengers, were obliged to go into 
quarantine in the Lazaretto for forty days. It was 
a time of severe trial for the young wife, in a foreign 
country, virtually in prison, and seeing her husband 
very ill as a result of the voyage and the confinement 
in the cold, cheerless Lazaretto. 

When the quarantine was over they were removed 
to an apartment which their friend, Antonio Filicchi, 

[279] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

had obtained for them; but the poor invalid did not 
rally, and two days after Christmas, praying to God 
to look after his dear wife and little ones, and calling, 
"My Christ Jesus, have mercy on me and receive me," 
he died, a stranger in a strange land. Elizabeth her- 
self had to perform the last offices of love to the dear 
dead body, so afraid were the people of the tuberculosis 
of which he had died. Then they proceeded to Leg- 
horn, where, in the Protestant cemetery, William 
Seton was laid to rest far from his native land. 

The young widow then went to live with the 
Filicchis. It was the beginning of her grace. The 
Filicchis, of an excellent Catholic family, were 
wealthy merchants who were forever performing 
works of charity. One of the brothers, Filippo, had 
married a Miss Cooper of Boston, and as representa- 
tive of the chief banking-house of Leghorn had been 
to America to discuss commercial questions for the 
new government after the Revolution, and was well 
known to Washington and to all the other noted men 
of the time. Washington had appointed him consul- 
general for the United States at Leghorn. 

It was then, while living with this fine Catholic 
family, that Elizabeth Seton got her first insight into 
the faith and practice of the Catholic Church. She 
accompanied the Filicchis to Florence, and was thrilled 
by the beautiful churches, the magnificent ceremonies 
of worship, and the simple devotion of the people. Yet 
during that month in the Filicchi household, piously 
Catholic as it was, she had no doubts about her own 

[280] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

faith. Zealous for the truth, her hosts sought to con- 
vert her, giving her good books to read, and even hav- 
ing her meet the pious Father Plunkett, a Jesuit, then 
in Leghorn. But it all seemed in vain. "Keep on 
praying," was the advice of the good Antonio 
Filicchi to her. 

But Elizabeth, with her little daughter Anna, set 
sail for home, and apparently nothing had been done 
towards bringing her any nearer to the Catholic 
Church. But the grace of God intervened in a simple 
manner. Scarcely had the vessel set sail than it col- 
lided with another and was obliged to put back for 
repairs. Little Anna was suddenly stricken with 
scarlet fever, and when she recovered Elizabeth her- 
self fell ill with the same sickness. It was but an- 
other grace to her soul, as she felt the wonderful 
charity of the good Catholic family in which God had 
placed her in order that she might witness their un- 
stinted devotion to their faith. Even at that time, writ- 
ing to her sister-in-law about the Catholic privilege of 
assisting at daily Mass, she said, "Why, they must be 
as happy as angels, almost." 

At length the travelers sailed for home, Antonio 
Filicchi accompanying them to protect them and also* 
to continue the work of conversion he had begun. It 
was a long voyage, lasting fifty-six days, and many an 
hour of it was employed by Antonio in explaining 
Catholic doctrine and practice to the young widow, the 
salvation of whose soul he so desired. 

Scarcely was Elizabeth back home when a new sor- 
[281] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

row came to her in the death of her sister-in-law, the 
devout Rebecca. In the midst of that grief, Elizabeth 
made up her mind to enter the Catholic Church at once. 
But Antonio advised her first of all to tell her family 
of her intention. It was hardly good advice. It raised 
a storm of indignation. It was a time when everything 
Catholic was despised, and the Setons and the Bayleys, 
high in New York society, deemed the contemplated 
action of Elizabeth an insult to their position in so- 
ciety. This opposition, however, had no effect upon 
her. The greatest obstacle, the thing that delayed 
her embracing the faith immediately, was her con- 
sideration for the Rev. Mr. Hobart, the minister of 
Trinity Church, who had ever been kind to her, and 
for whom she had a great reverence. If a good man 
like him was satisfied that he had the true faith, why 
should she worry about her position? she asked her- 
self. So she wrote to him of the sufferings of her 
soul, drawn as it was to the despised Catholic Church, 
yet held also to the faith of her childhood. 

He pleaded with her to put the design out of her 
mind, and finally she agreed to read the books he 
would give her, hoping to satisfy her that her duty 
was to remain in the Episcopal faith. It was for her 
a time of groping in darkness, a time of wavering, 
moved as she was by the dread of breaking the family 
ties always so dear to her. She did not know what to 
do. Mixed with this spiritual unrest was the worry 
about the support of her little ones. There was 
nothing left of her husband's business. She and her 

[282 ] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

children would have to depend on the charity of her 
own and her husband's family. These were willing 
to care for them, but only on condition that Elizabeth 
would not disgrace them by joining the Catholic 
Church. If she took that step, she and her children 
must take the consequences of her folly. 

She was now living in a little cottage a mile outside 
the city. Mr. Hobart still corresponded with her and 
satisfied her conscience that she should remain an 
Episcopalian. Meanwhile her good friend, Antonio 
Filicchi, who had been visiting other cities, returned 
to New York. She showed him Mr. Hobart's manu- 
script, and Antonio persuaded her to let him show it 
to Father William O'Brien, then pastor of St. Peter's 
Church on Barclay Street. She owed her conversion, 
under God, to the same Antonio. He kept writing 
to her, and got Bishop Carroll to write to her, con- 
vinced that she should become a Catholic. 

Finally she stopped going to the Protestant church, 
but her soul was unhappy, in spiritual darkness and 
misery. So it continued for several months, but at 
last the grace of God triumphed. Despite all opposi- 
tion, notwithstanding the bitterness of her relatives, 
and the fact that she was facing destitution not only 
for herself but for her five children as well, she made 
up her mind to enter the Catholic Church. She was 
baptized into the Church at St. Peter's, in Barclay 
Street, New York, by Father O'Brien, on March 14, 
1805, Antonio Filicchi being present; and on the Feast 

[283] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of the Annunciation she made her first Holy Com- 
munion. Her soul had found its peace at last. 

But with the new peace came worldly troubles. 
How was she to support her little ones? Most of 
her friends had deserted her. Filicchi, ever kind, had 
placed a sum of money at her disposal, but she did 
not wish to be a subject of charity without first trying 
to help herself. 

Everything looked promising in the establishment 
at this time of a school for boys by a Catholic gentle- 
man, an Englishman named White. She was to have 
charge of the younger boys and in return receive edu- 
cation for her own children. But the bigots killed the 
school. It was rumored about that the object of the 
school was to proselytize, and this, together with the 
presence of the "renegade" Mrs. Seton, sealed its fate 
after a few months. Then she took in boy boarders 
from another school, and was happy at being able to 
earn her own living, until her persecutors destroyed 
this work, too. God was making her suffer for her 
loyalty to her conscience, and yet He was using these 
sufferings to bring her to the work for which He had 
chosen her. 

What renewed this persecution was the announce- 
ment made by young Cecelia Seton, her husband's 
sister, that she wished also to become a Catholic. She 
went for instruction to Father O'Brien, and again the 
storm of bigotry broke forth. Elizabeth, who a short 
time before had nursed Cecelia through sickness, was 
now denounced as a corrupter, and the Seton family 

[284] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

threatened to obtain her expulsion from the State by 
the Legislature as a dangerous character. Cecelia was 
kept in close confinement, and was even threatened 
with deportation to the West Indies if she did not give 
up the outrageous idea of becoming a Catholic. It 
seems almost incredible that good people could descend 
to such persecution. What made the persecution 
harder for Cecelia was that Elizabeth was not per- 
mitted to write to her. 

About that time Bishop Carroll made a visit to New 
York. Elizabeth met him, and derived much consola- 
tion from the wise advice of the old man, besides re- 
ceiving Confirmation from him. He also met Cecelia, 
and perhaps as a result of his priestly counsel she soon 
entered the Church, though in doing so she had to leave 
her home, where she had been persecuted, and seek 
an asylum with Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth at this time thought of taking her loved 
ones to Italy, where her staunch friend Filicchi of- 
fered her a home. He again showed his practical 
kindness by putting another sum of money in the 
bank for her to draw on. But Father Cheverus, after- 
wards Cardinal, and Father Matignon persuaded her 
to remain in America. The hand of God was direct- 
ing things. 

The decision to remain at home in America brought 
hard days for the converts. The bitterness of the 
Seton family was simply the prejudice general at the 
time against the Catholic Church. On Christmas eve 
of that year a mob attempted to tear down St. Peter's 

[285] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

commodations in the new house were primitive, but 
the determined women did not mind the inconven- 
iences. They were missionaries in a new work. Mrs. 
Seton was of course the happiest one of the lot. 
Founder of a religious community, she knew now what 
her life's work was to be, and she had the blessed 
privilege of keeping her children with her. 

One of the most touching incidents in the life of 
Mother Seton is the story of Harriet Seton, her sister- 
in-law. When Harriet came down to Emmittsburg to 
accompany the delicate Cecelia, she had left the centre 
of New York's most fashionable circle. She was 
indeed the belle of that city. Many had sought her in 
marriage, but for several years now she had been 
engaged to Barclay Bayley, Mrs. Seton' s half-brother, 
a man who hardly seemed worthy of such a woman 
as Harriet. 

The zeal and patience of Mrs. Seton and Cecelia in 
the Catholic faith had impressed her, and she, too, 
had the longing to embrace the faith. But family ties 
held her back. And even when she was allowed to 
go south with Cecelia she had been warned not to go 
into the Catholic church for fear of the machinations 
of Elizabeth. So for a long time at Emmittsburg she 
would accompany the others to the door of the little 
church, and then spend her time in the fields and woods 
until the services were ended and the others rejoined 
her. One evening, when Mother Seton came from 
the church, she found Harriet on her knees at the foot 
of a tree, sobbing her heart out because she could not 

[288] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

enter the church. It was the coming of grace. Soon 
the young woman made her decision, a decision that 
caused her much pain. She was willing even to give 
up the man she loved to follow the will of God. 

But she was not long for this world. In the Decem- 
ber of that year, after nursing the sick, she was taken 
ill herself and died a most edifying death, a true child 
of the Church, the first one of the little community to 
be laid at rest in the new cemetery. She had given up 
a luxurious home, the love of the man to whom she 
was engaged, all that this world prizes, for suffering 
and sacrifice; but she had received in return the pearl 
of great price. There is no sweeter character in all 
history than Harriet Seton, once the belle of New 
York. 

It is not my purpose to detail the religious life of 
the new community. It was for the ten sisters a life 
of hardship, but with never a murmur. They suffered 
from the cold, their habits were coarse and patched, 
they had not enough to eat. On the Sunday before 
Christmas they feasted on a herring; their coffee was 
made from carrots and molasses, but they laughed at 
all the discomforts, for their souls were at peace. They 
went about their work, teaching the poor, spinning, 
knitting, praying, grateful to God, who had been so 
good to them. 

And thus in poverty and lowliness was established 
that great work of the Sisters of Charity which was to 
be a tower of strength to the Catholic Church in 
America. 

[289] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Death again came soon, this time for the saintly 
Cecelia, and she was laid away in the grave next to 
Harriet's. As Mother Seton said of her: "She was 
innocence and peace itself." 

These deaths were sore trials to Mother Seton, but 
God required a greater sacrifice still. Elizabeth was 
to be wounded in her great mother-love. Anna Seton, 
or Annina, as the mother called her, was her pride and 
consolation. She had been with her in the days of 
sorrow in Italy, and had never been separated from 
her. She had grown into a girl of great beauty, and 
as good as she was beautiful. She sought admission 
into the community, but even before that, while a 
pupil, she arose every morning at five and passed an 
hour in meditation on her knees before Mass. But 
her health failed. She showed her father's weak con- 
stitution, but in spite of that went out in all weathers 
to nurse the sick. Drenched with rain one day, she 
caught cold, and soon the dread consumption claimed 
her as a victim. She made her vows on her death- 
bed, and while the little Catharine and Rebecca, her 
sisters, knelt at the foot of her bed and sang her 
favorite hymn at her request, she went to her reward. 
The following day she was buried beside Harriet and 
Cecelia. 

Mother Seton's heart was broken at the death of the 
beloved daughter, but she bore the grief with sweet 
resignation to the will of God. Her mother-love had 
been purified. She knew that she could procure for her 
darling Annina nothing more glorious than the death 

[290] 



ELIZABETH SETON 

of a saint. "O mother, mother," she wrote in her 
journal, "give a thousand thanks all your life, every 
day of your life, until you meet with her again." 

A few years more, years of hard labor for the new 
community, years of prayer and sacrifice, and again 
God afflicted the mother's heart by taking from her 
the little Rebecca. She had fallen one day and had 
become a hopeless cripple. But she never complained. 
All medical skill had been tried in vain. For six 
months before her death she knew no ease from pain. 
One day she said, "If the doctors were to say to me, 
'Rebecca, you are cured/ I would not rejoice. My 
dearest Saviour, I know too well the happiness of dy- 
ing young and sinning no more." Sometimes she 
would worry over the sorrow her death would bring 
her mother. "You will return alone, dear mamma, 
and there will be no little Bee behind the bed-curtains. 
But that is only one side ; when I look at the other side 
I forget all else. You will have consolation, for you 
hope that my salvation is assured." 

It was a long death-agony for the young girl. 
"Think only of your Blessed Saviour now, my dar- 
ling," said Mother Seton as she held her in her arms. 
"To be sure," she answered, and dropped her head 
for the last time on her mother's breast. 

As her daughters had gone, so was Mother Seton 
soon to go. She did not complain; indeed, she was 
glad to go. Her two boys had been provided for, and 
she felt that little Catharine would enter a religious 
community. The same little Catharine died, at the age 

[291] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

of ninety, as Mother Catharine of the Sisters of Mercy 
in New York. Mother Seton knew that her work was 
done, and she longed to go to Rebecca and Annina and 
to God. During those days of her last illness and de- 
cline she would visit every day the graveyard and gaze 
at the resting-place of Annina. Many graves were 
there now, the graves of her children, of Harriet and 
Cecelia, and of many of her sisters in religion. And 
she knew that she herself would soon be lying beside 
them. It was not long. She died on January 4, 1821, 
and was laid to rest beside the dear Annina. 

So passed the great Mother Seton, one of the most 
beautiful characters that ever lived. Her cause has 
already been taken up, and one day we may have the 
privilege of calling her St. Elizabeth Seton, one of the 
greatest glories of the Church in America. 

Mother Seton is she called on account of her office 
in the community which she established, But it is a 
title that belongs to her in another sense. She was the 
mother of children, and as such shines forth, a glori- 
ous example to all mothers. 

Elizabeth Seton loved her children. But she loved 
them with a holy love. She considered little their 
worldly advancement. She knew the real value of 
things, and sought first of all the welfare of their 
souls. What was death, even, so long as it meant the 
going of her little ones to God? When she embraced 
the Catholic faith she knew that it would mean suffer- 
ing, not only for herself, but for her children. But 
she chose for herself and them the way of the Cross. 

[292] 



ELIZABETH SETON 



Better to serve God and save one's soul than to gain 
the whole world and lose heaven. 

Surely our Catholic mothers have a glorious patron- 
ess, a shining example, in Elizabeth Bayley Seton. 



[293] 



JERUSHA BARBER 
( 1 789-1 860) 

THE history of the Catholic Church is a history 
of noble men and women. Page after page is 
filled with the story of sacrifice demanded by a jealous 
God, Who requires that hearts shall be His alone. 
And what sacrifices He has asked of His avowed lov- 
ers! He has asked the wife to leave her husband, the 
mother to leave her little ones. Again, He has asked 
mother and children to give their life as a proof of 
love. 

There is no end to these sacrifices. Not only does 
one find them in the martyrs, in the days of the Cece- 
lias, the Felicitas, the Symphorosas : they have been 
asked in our own land, in our own time, as in the case 
of Mother Seton. Sanctity belongs to no age, to no 
country. As long as the Holy Ghost abides with the 
Church, so long shall we see the flowering of sanctity. 

In all the history of the Catholic Church in the 
United States there is nothing more romantic and at 
the same time more inspiring than the story of the 
Barber family, among the very first of the converts 
from Protestantism, and the example which those men 
and women have handed down to posterity of a de- 

[294] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

votion to the truth, of an answer to the call of God, 
even though the way led through sacrifice and pain. 
To read the story of this family, and especially of 
Jerusha Barber, is to fancy one's self back in the ages 
of faith. Her story is like a page from the life of 
St. Jane Frances de Chantal, or St. Elizabeth of Hun- 
gary, in its renunciation — or, rather, sanctification — 
of a mother's love. 

When Bishop Carroll made his first visit to Bos- 
ton in 1 79 1, he found there, all told, one hundred and 
twenty Catholics. Father Thayer, Boston-born and 
a convert, was then the only priest in New England. 
One can judge from these facts what the condition of 
the Church then was in a place where it is now so 
strong. Bishop Carroll had been received kindly by 
the Protestants, and was even the guest of honor at 
the annual dinner of the Ancient and Honorable Ar- 
tillery Company. "It is wonderful to tell," says he, 
"what great civilities have been done to me in this 
town, where, a few years ago, a Popish priest was 
thought to be the greatest monster in creation. Many 
here, even of the principal people, have acknowledged 
to me that they would have crossed to the opposite 
side of the street rather than meet a Roman Catholic 
sometime ago. This horror which was associated with 
the idea of Papist is incredible; and the scandalous 
misrepresentations by their ministers increased the 
horror every Sunday." 

But up in New Hampshire, which witnessed the first 
Step of the Barber family towards the Catholic Church, 

[ 295 ] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

there was none of that incipient Boston broad-minded- 
ness which Bishop Carroll had discovered. Catholics 
in New Hampshire were ostracized socially and, of 
course, politically. There was that old unreasoning, 
ignorant hatred of everything Catholic. For that rea- 
son it is evident that the Barbers, who faced that spirit 
unflinchingly, were of heroic courage. 

Daniel Barber was then an Episcopalian minister 
in Claremont, New Hampshire. He was born in Con- 
necticut in 1756, one of nine children, of parents who 
were both very religious. He had served two short 
terms in the War of the Revolution. He had been a 
strong Congregationalist, but, as his father before him, 
he had reached the conviction that there was in that 
body no ecclesiastical authority or priesthood. It was 
a sacrifice for him to part from friends, from old cus- 
toms, but he manfully made the sacrifice, and joined 
the Church of England, which in those days was quite 
as much despised as the Catholic Church by the Puri- 
tans. He was made an Episcopal minister at Schenec- 
tady, New York, in 1783. From there he came to 
Vermont in 1787, where he spent a few years, and 
finally took a church in Claremont, which he served for 
twenty-four years. He had married Chloe Chase, 
daughter of Judge Chase, and at the time he settled 
in Claremont had three sons, the youngest of whom 
died at the age of three, and one daughter. 

It was during this ministry that in 1808 he baptized 
Fanny Allen, a daughter of the famous General Ethan 
Allen. Her story is worthy of more than passing men- 

[296] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

tion. She was the youngest daughter of the General, 
and had been born in 1784. She was a remarkably 
beautiful girl and had inherited much of the firmness 
of character of her father. The General had died 
when she was about five years old, and her mother had 
married again. When she was twenty-three she de- 
termined to go to Montreal to study French ; and her 
mother and stepfather, before letting her go, decided 
that she ought to be baptized. For that purpose they 
invited the Rev. Daniel Barber to the house. He was 
shocked on that occasion, for Fanny during the cere- 
mony did nothing but laugh, and he reproved her for 
her levity. 

On arriving at Montreal, she went to board with the 
Sisters. One day one of the Sisters asked her to bring 
a vase of flowers and place it on the altar, telling her 
to adore Our Lord at the same time. Fanny had no 
notion of adoring the Blessed Sacrament, but she 
brought the flowers nevertheless. As she tried to en- 
ter the sanctuary she felt repelled. Three times she 
renewed the attempt, but all in vain. And then she 
fell on her knees and adored Jesus in the Eucharist. 
She determined then, as she wept, to give herself to the 
Lord. So she was instructed and admitted to the 
Church. 

There was of course great consternation at home. 
The parents brought her back immediately, and by 
every means sought to dissuade her from becoming a 
nun. They took her traveling to different cities. Ad- 
mirers sought her hand, gay social parties were ar- 

[297] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ranged in her honor. But all to no purpose. After the 
year which she had promised to give her parents was 
over, she returned to Montreal. And her mother not 
only gave her consent for her to become a religious, 
but even accompanied her to Montreal, inspected the 
convent, and was pleased at the good home her daugh- 
ter was to have. She was finally received into the 
Hotel-Dieu, and was visited there by her parents, who 
were delighted with the place. When, in 1810, she 
made her profession, the chapel was filled with Ameri- 
can friends, among them Daniel Barber, all of whom 
wondered at the strange life chosen by the beautiful 
Fanny Allen. There she lived nine years, a life of 
suffering, always patient and happy, and died at the 
age of thirty-five, the "First New England Nun." 
The sight of her happiness, her determination, her 
sacrifice, had its influence, no doubt, in the conversion 
of Daniel Barber. 

It was about the time of Fanny Allen's baptism that 
Daniel began to have doubts about the validity of his 
Orders, doubts that had been occasioned by his read- 
ing a Catholic book against the validity of Anglican 
Orders. He had made inquiries among those of his 
own faith, but could receive no satisfactory solution 
of his difficulties. 

Finally, in desperation, he decided to consult Father 
Cheverus, afterwards Bishop of Boston, one of the 
priests who, as a result of the French Revolution, had 
come to America to labor for the faith. Father Mati- 
gnon had come in 1792, and Father Cheverus in 1796. 

[298] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

When Boston was made a separate diocese from Balti- 
more, Father Cheverus was chosen bishop and was 
consecrated in 1810. In 181 2 he had come to visit 
New Hampshire, which he had visited before when 
he was only a missionary priest. Father Cheverus was 
the first priest Daniel Barber had ever seen, and it 
took great courage for him to consult him. But the 
saintly Cheverus received him kindly, gave him to 
read certain books explaining Catholic doctrine, and 
answered all his questions as best he could. Daniel 
brought the books home, and not only read them him- 
self, but gave them to his family and to members of 
his congregation, who were evidently as broad-minded 
as their pastor. 

The good work towards conversion was furthered 
by no less a person than Daniel's own son, the Rev. 
Virgil Barber, who had come home with his wife to 
pay a visit to the old folks. Daniel was so enthusi- 
astic over the books which Father Cheverus had given 
him that he delighted in reading them to the family, 
to the great pleasure of Virgil; so much so that when 
he and his wife left home they asked to be allowed 
to take with them one of the books, which was Mil- 
ner's End of Controversy. 

Virgil at that time was principal of an academy at 
Fairfield, New York, about fifteen miles from Utica, 
and was also pastor of the Episcopal church of that 
town. His maid at that time was a good, pious Irish 
Catholic girl. He had seen her reading her prayer- 
book, and curiosity induced him to take it up and 

[299] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

read it. It was a Novena to St. Francis Xavier. So 
struck was he by the life of the Saint that he got the 
complete life, and after reading of the miracles of the 
extraordinary man of God and his wonderful sanctity, 
he began seriously to consider it. 

He himself tells the story: "How could a re- 
ligion which forms such men be a mere human insti- 
tution? Peace then departed from my soul. I had 
doubts concerning the truth of my Protestant faith. I 
began to study very seriously, and the more I studied 
the more my doubts increased. These doubts I sub- 
mitted to my bishop (Dr. Hobart), hoping thereby to 
find peace; but he gave me no light on the subject, 
and rather strengthened my doubts, as he paid no seri- 
ous attention to my objections. We were at this time 
standing at the window of a room whence we could 
hear the singing going on in a Catholic church near 
by. I took occasion to ask the Bishop, 'Do you think 
that those can be saved?' At this question of mine he 
could not help smiling, and answered, 'They have the 
old religion, don't you know ? But they do too much, 
and one can be saved without so much trouble. Do 
not distress yourself about such matters. Go back 
home in peace, and if you choose to do so, consult 
your brother ministers and your religious scruples will 
soon vanish.' I returned home from that interview 
more distressed than I was before. I put down on 
paper my objections against the Protestant religion in 
the shape of fourteen questions, and I invited many 
ministers of the Episcopal Church to come and visit 

[300] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

me. To each of them, as they came, I presented the 
terrible sheet of paper. They all glanced at the ques- 
tions, and none failed to say, 'Well, well, we'll see 
after tea' ; but after tea music was had at the piano; 
and as no one attempted to answer the questions, I 
then resolved to see and consult the Bishop of Bos- 
ton." 

This was Bishop Fenwick, then Father Fenwick, 
an assistant to Father Kohlmann in New York City. 
To him came Virgil Barber with his difficulties. Fa- 
ther Fenwick received him kindly and answered his 
questions. A few months afterwards he came to him 
again. He was now convinced that the Catholic 
Church alone was the true Church. But he hesitated 
to take the step. He had a wife and five small chil- 
dren, and he worried as to how he could support 
them if he gave up his fine living as pastor and presi- 
dent of the academy. Father Fenwick, however, 
pointed out to him his duty, regardless of the conse- 
quences. "Trust your affairs to the management of a 
beneficent Providence," he told him. "Embrace the 
truth, now that you have found it, and leave the 
rest to God. He has led you on to make this inquiry. 
He has followed you step by step, and now that you 
yield to this grace, will He abandon you? No; be- 
lieve me, you were never more secure of subsistence." 

It was enough. He saw his duty, and he did it. A 
few days after this interview with Father Fenwick 
he renounced Protestantism and was received into the 
Catholic Church. Meanwhile a change was also tak- 

[301] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

read it. It was a Novena to St. Francis Xavier. So 
struck was he by the life of the Saint that he got the 
complete life, and after reading of the miracles of the 
extraordinary man of God and his wonderful sanctity, 
he began seriously to consider it. 

He himself tells the story: "How could a re- 
ligion which forms such men be a mere human insti- 
tution? Peace then departed from my soul. I had 
doubts concerning the truth of my Protestant faith. I 
began to study very seriously, and the more I studied 
the more my doubts increased. These doubts I sub- 
mitted to my bishop (Dr. Hobart), hoping thereby to 
find peace; but he gave me no light on the subject, 
and rather strengthened my doubts, as he paid no seri- 
ous attention to my objections. We were at this time 
standing at the window of a room whence we could 
hear the singing going on in a Catholic church near 
by. I took occasion to ask the Bishop, 'Do you think 
that those can be saved?' At this question of mine he 
could not help smiling, and answered, They have the 
old religion, don't you know ? But they do too much, 
and one can be saved without so much trouble. Do 
not distress yourself about such matters. Go back 
home in peace, and if you choose to do so, consult 
your brother ministers and your religious scruples will 
soon vanish.' I returned home from that interview 
more distressed than I was before. I put down on 
paper my objections against the Protestant religion in 
the shape of fourteen questions, and I invited many 
ministers of the Episcopal Church to come and visit 

[300] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

me. To each of them, as they came, I presented the 
terrible sheet of paper. They all glanced at the ques- 
tions, and none failed to say, 'Well, well, we'll see 
after tea' ; but after tea music was had at the piano; 
and as no one attempted to answer the questions, I 
then resolved to see and consult the Bishop of Bos- 
ton." 

This was Bishop Fenwick, then Father Fenwick, 
an assistant to Father Kohlmann in New York City. 
To him came Virgil Barber with his difficulties. Fa- 
ther Fenwick received him kindly and answered his 
questions. A few months afterwards he came to him 
again. He was now convinced that the Catholic 
Church alone was the true Church. But he hesitated 
to take the step. He had a wife and five small chil- 
dren, and he worried as to how he could support 
them if he gave up his fine living as pastor and presi- 
dent of the academy. Father Fenwick, however, 
pointed out to him his duty, regardless of the conse- 
quences. "Trust your affairs to the management of a 
beneficent Providence," he told him. "Embrace the 
truth, now that you have found it, and leave the 
rest to God. He has led you on to make this inquiry. 
He has followed you step by step, and now that you 
yield to this grace, will He abandon you? No; be- 
lieve me, you were never more secure of subsistence." 

It was enough. He saw his duty, and he did it. A 
few days after this interview with Father Fenwick 
he renounced Protestantism and was received into the 
Catholic Church. Meanwhile a change was also tak- 

[301] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ing place in the soul of his wife, Jerusha. She had 
been born in New Town, Connecticut, in 1789. Her 
parents were models of domestic virtue, and her 
mother had been regarded as a saint by her Protestant 
neighbors. Jerusha was the youngest of four chil- 
dren, and at the time of her father's death, when she 
was sixteen, she gave herself more and more to piety, 
and was the great consolation of her mother. When 
she was nineteen she married Virgil Barber, then 
twenty-five. It was a union of deep love. There was 
perfect devotion on both sides, and not only did she 
love him, but she was also his chief adviser even in 
spiritual matters. At the time he read the life of St. 
Francis Xavier he remarked to her that "his parallel 
could not be found in the whole Protestant Church/' 
So great was his admiration for the Saint that when 
their son was born shortly after this he wanted to 
name him Francis Xavier Barber. But she was in- 
dignant, and refused to have the "Popish name," call- 
ing him Samuel instead. But still, in spite of her in- 
nate repugnance to the Catholic Church, she took part 
in his investigations. He used to tell her the results 
of his studies, and she soon saw whither he was tend- 
ing. She saw the ground giving beneath her, and 
it brought consternation. He never suspected the pain 
she was suffering as she saw him drawing near to the 
Catholic Church and away from the living upon which 
she and her little ones were dependent. When the 
Episcopalian bishop and the ministers, seeking to 
deter him from taking the step, came to him and 

[302] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

told him that of course he would have to resign the 
academy if he persisted in becoming a Catholic, he 
came to his wife for advice. "If," said she, "I were 
to become a Catholic, I would go where I could prac- 
tise my religion." And she also continued to study 
the Catholic doctrine, principally, perhaps, to please 
him, for she loved him greatly. It was a great blow 
to her prospects for her family when he announced 
to her his decision, but she made no objection. She 
hid her grief in her heart. 

Once he had become a Catholic, he knew that it 
was useless to seek to hold his school, and so, with 
her consent, he resigned ; for so great was the bigotry 
that after he had given up his pulpit all his parishion- 
ers turned against him, and would have compelled him 
to resign from the academy had he not done so volun- 
tarily. 

It was a hopeless future they faced, with the five 
little ones to feed. Again he turned to Father Fen- 
wick, who had promised him that God would not fail 
him in this sacrifice. Father Fenwick welcomed them 
to New York, opened his house to them and started a 
school which he gave into the charge of Virgil, and 
thus provided him with the means to support his 
family. 

It was an answer to the man's faith. During the 
time of trial, Virgil Barber found strength in his 
good wife. She entered heart and soul into all his 
plans, and great as was her inherited prejudice against 
the religion he had adopted, — and that, too, with 

[303] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

such a sacrifice imposed on her, — she listened to his 
talk about the claims of the Church, and was soon 
received herself into the faith. They both made their 
first Communion together in St. Peter's Church, Bar- 
clay Street. 

Jerusha was not one to refuse to do the will of God. 
It meant a great deal to her. She had given up good 
society and a position of ease. She had put aside all 
the worldly prospects of her children. But she knew 
that God would provide. She said at the time that she 
considered the children as God's rather than her own, 
she being only the temporary agent. If the children 
were God's, surely He would provide for them. It 
was a simple but a great faith. 

The Barbers continued their school for five months. 
And then they were called on by God to make a sacri- 
fice of their very hearts. On the day that Virgil Bar- 
ber received his first Communion side by side with his 
wife, he was filled with the desire to consecrate him- 
self wholly to the service of God, impossible as that 
seemed at the time. Father Fenwick was at this time 
rector of Georgetown College, having returned there 
after his work as administrator of the New York dio- 
cese was ended, in 1816, on the appointment of a new 
bishop. He was still mindful of the Barbers, and per- 
haps a bit worried over their future. The school had 
been prosperous, and numbered among its many pupils 
children from some of the most influential New York 
families. But he knew not how long that would con- 
tinue, and wrote to Virgil, asking him what were his 

[304] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

plans for the future. All the time the new converts 
had been studying and reading the Lives of the Saints. 
Virgil wrote to his good friend, Father Fenwick, and 
told him that he felt a call to the religious life, and 
that were it not for his wife and children, he would 
think of becoming a priest. Before he sent this let- 
ter, he read it to his wife, as he was accustomed to 
read to her all his letters. To her it was a new 
thought, and it stunned her. She could not get it 
out of her mind. It seemed to her as a death-blow. 
She could not bear even the thought of separation from 
the man she so tenderly loved, the father of her chil- 
dren. Her daughter, later Sister Josephine, tells the 
story of that trial. 

"The letter was the death-blow to her happiness. 
'From that hour/ she said to me, T enjoyed not a 
moment's peace. The thought that God wanted my 
brother (for so she called Mr. Barber after their en- 
trance into religion), and that I was the obstacle, pur- 
sued me day and night.' But she did not at first re- 
veal her trouble to him, hoping time would dissipate it. 
But it proved the reverse. Everything she read, every- 
thing she heard, seemed to bear upon the one point, 
and to fasten upon her heart with a tenacity from 
which she was unable to free herself. T felt,' said 
she, 'that I must make the sacrifice to God; and that 
if I should refuse He would deprive me of my husband 
and children both in this world and the next. Of this 
I felt the strongest conviction, that in case of refusal, 
one or the other of us would die and our children be 

[305] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

left orphans/ At length, unable to endure her agony 
of mind, she imparted her thoughts to my father, who 
tried to soothe her by saying that God did not require 
such a thing of them, and that she must not permit it 
to distress her. He told her that in penning those 
lines, he had not meant them in the sense she had 
taken, but only as expressive of his predilection for 
the ministry, feeling himself bound to his family by 
the laws of God and man. This would quiet her for 
a while; but in spite of his assurance her trouble would 
return, and at times with such violence that she was 
obliged to call him from his school-room to give her 
comfort. 'Then,' said she, 'he would take me in his 
arms, wipe away my tears, and talk to me until my 
fears were almost dissipated. Yet while he lavished 
upon me all this tenderness, there was deep down in 
my heart a whisper that said : This is not God. This 
is not what He demands of you/ Neither was my 
father without similar impressions, although he con- 
cealed them from her, deeming it his duty to do so 
until better assured of the will of God. But when 
this became manifest, he encouraged her to prefer 
eternity to time and to look forward to their happy re- 
union in a better world. They were not long in tak- 
ing their decision, for it was impossible for them to 
remain in such a violent state of feeling for any great 
length of time. Yet between its first suggestion and 
final accomplishment some months must necessarily in- 
tervene; and these were to my parents months of 
agony. 'A thousand times,' said my mother, 'would 

[306] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

I willingly have had a dagger plunged into my breast, 
and have found it a relief; for not only did my heart 
ache with the sentiment of grief; but it ached physi- 
cally — the very flesh ached, just as your head aches. 
Put your hand here; you cannot feel it beat; it is not 
in its natural place; it is sunk in back.' And truly 
enough, I could not feel the slightest pulsation; but 
on applying the hand to a spot between the shoulders, 
found the palpitations strong. I need not say I was 
much astonished at it, and wondered at the moral and 
physical strength with which God must have endued 
her to sustain an assault of mental suffering so long. 
My father, also, at times nearly gave way under the 
trial. 'When he was in depression of mind,' said she, 
'he always wanted me to talk to him ; and, as docile as 
a child, would, at my bidding, kneel and recite with me 
the Collect for Peace, as also that to the Choir of 
Thrones, which, I think, never failed to tranquilize 
him. Yet I did not immediately surrender myself to 
grace. I resisted as long as I could, and as long as I 
dared, striving to turn a deaf ear to it, and to persuade 
myself God did not demand such a course from me. 
But in vain. I was compelled to yield.* I once asked 
her how she had been able to accomplish such a sacri- 
fice. 'I did not do it/ she answered. 'It was not I; 
I could not have done it. God did it for me. He 
took me up and carried me through it.' " 

The heart of every man must thrill at that story of 
sacrifice, of the fight between the love for man and the 
love for God. Jerusha Barber rose to the occasion. 

[307I 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

She was as heroic as her husband. If God wanted him 
to be a priest, she would not stand in the way, and so 
she assured him that to help his plan she would be- 
come a religious if the Church would sanction their 
separation. They wrote to Father Fenwick about their 
trouble of conscience. He hardly knew, considering 
the difficulties of the case, how to advise them, but he 
answered that there was no objection to their plan if 
both with mutual consent consecrated their lives to. 
God, and if proper provision were made for the chil- 
dren. His answer was a relief to them, yet there was 
a difficulty apparently insurmountable in providing for 
the little ones, one of them a mere infant at its mother's 
breast. They had nothing of this world's goods. Vir- 
gil had bought some land near Utica, which he had 
not entirely paid for, but after his conversion he had 
been forced to sell it at a sacrifice, so great was the 
bitterness against him for his defection from Episco- 
palianism. They had nothing now, but they did not 
lose their confidence in God. They knew that He 
would clear the way if He wanted them to lead the 
religious life. 

Again God used Father Fenwick. This good 
priest went to Archbishop Neale of Baltimore, and 
laid the case before him. It touched the Archbishop 
to see such great faith, and he arranged to have Mrs. 
Barber and her three daughters enter the Visitation 
Convent at Georgetown, the three girls to be received 
as boarders and the mother as a teacher- with a view 
to her entering the community. 

[308] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

Father Fenwick's mother was living in a large man- 
sion near the college, and she consented to take the 
baby and care for it, while Mr. Barber and the boy 
Samuel were to go to Georgetown College. As soon 
as all was arranged in this way the family left New 
York and went to Georgetown, where, after a few 
days, the husband and wife were invited to the college 
chapel, and there, in the presence of many priests and 
lay people, after both had given their full consent, the 
Archbishop pronounced the dissolution of their union. 
It was like a scene from the ages of faith. What a 
great love of God it was that induced a loving husband 
and wife to sacrifice all their love, to part from each 
other, and even to break up their home and scatter 
their children ! The ages of faith never showed any- 
thing more inspiring. It was a family upon which 
God poured His choicest blessings. Every one of 
them, husband, wife, and all the children, entered the 
religious life. Virgil and his son Samuel became 
Jesuits; Mrs. Barber and the baby Josephine, after- 
wards Sister Josephine, entered the Visitation Order, 
and the other three girls, Mary, Abby, and Susan, who 
had come to board with their mother at the Visitation 
convent, later on became Ursulines, Mary, the oldest, 
entering the Ursuline convent at Charlestown and be- 
ing there at the time it was burned by the Know-noth- 
ing mob in 1834. She afterwards wrote the account 
of that happening. Abby joined the Ursulines at 
Quebec, and was a sister there for more than fifty 
years. Susan died with the Ursulines at Three Rivers, 

[309] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

at the age of twenty- four, an example of great holi- 
ness. The son Samuel was a noble, self-sacrificing 
missionary priest, and died, in 1864, at the age of fifty. 
But we are anticipating. Soon after his admission 
to Georgetown, Virgil was sent to Rome to make his 
studies. His wife meanwhile was deep in her new 
work in the convent. She was a fervent novice. So 
great had been her wish to become a nun, that she 
had even made a habit for herself before her admis- 
sion. She was an excellent teacher, and for that rea- 
son a great acquisition to the Order. She was soon 
made a directress, and then a trainer of the novices in 
teaching. But three months after she had entered it 
was deemed advisable for her to return to the world 
for a time, and she went to live in a boarding-house 
at Baltimore. One day there came to this house a sea- 
captain named Baker, who, while relating the story of 
his recent voyage to Europe, told of one of the pas- 
sengers, a Mr. Barber, who was so grief-stricken that 
they all feared he would die. The Captain, of course, 
did not know who Mr. Barber was, and that he was 
speaking to his wife. But as he told the story, as she 
listened to the description of the agony of the man 
who had been her husband, her heart sank. Was she 
right ? was he right? she asked herself. Had they been 
mistaken in making the sacrifice? It was one of her 
great trials, but she fought against it, conquered the 
feeling in her heart, and went back to Georgetown 
to follow the will of God wherever it led. She was 
then twenty-eight years old. 

[310] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

At the end of that year she took her vows in the 
chapel. Her husband, who had but recently returned 
from Rome, was present, together with their five 
children. -Who knows what feelings came to the hearts 
of them all? Was it not, after all, a way of the 
Cross? For this woman who had set foot upon her 
heart it was not a life of calm. From a natural point 
of view, it was a humiliating life. She realized that 
she and her children were dependents, inasmuch as 
Virgil was not able to support them. They were 
subjects for charity, she felt, even while she gave 
good service to the community. But the trial of pov- 
erty for her loved ones was a real one. She had the 
heart of a mother. She was not an unnatural mother. 
She loved her children. As she herself once said, "I 
could have put myself under the feet of any one who 
was kind to my children." One day Mrs. Fenwick 
brought the baby Josephine to see her. The child did 
not know her. It broke the mother's heart. "My 
God !" she cried, "my own child does not know me." 

Meanwhile Virgil, soon after his return from Rome, 
made a visit to his father and mother at Claremont. 
That was in 1818, and he was accompanied by the 
Rev. Dr. Ffrench, an English Dominican, a convert. 
Daniel Barber was still minister of the Episcopal 
Church, but on the following Sunday Mass was said 
in his house by Father Ffrench. Daniel assisted at 
it before he went to conduct the services in his own 
church. On the ensuing Sunday he even invited the 

[311] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

priest to say Mass and preach in the Episcopalian 
church, an invitation that was not accepted. 

Evidently Virgil knew that his family was ready 
to come into the Church, and for that reason had 
brought the priest with him. No doubt all had been 
influenced by the Catholic books which Daniel was 
circulating, as also by the sacrifices made by Virgil 
and his wife. 

The visit of the priest was as powerful an influence 
as the reading of the books. As a result of it, Mrs. 
Daniel Barber decided to become a Catholic. Her 
husband says of this decision: "My wife, who was 
one of the first in making an open profession of the 
Catholic faith, was a woman who possessed a strength 
of mind and resolution which qualified her for so 
important an investigation, and by which she set at 
naught the fear of man and the voice of the multitude. 
She improved the first opportunity of separating her- 
self, and embracing the standard of the Cross, from 
which she never separated till death." She was an 
ardent Catholic, and died at the age of seventy-nine, 
after having received the sacraments from her son 
Virgil, who was then a priest. 

In that week of Father Ffrench's visit, Mrs. Daniel 
Barber and her daughter, and also Daniel's sister, 
Mrs. Noah Tyler, and her daughter Rosette, were re- 
ceived into the Catholic Church. Later on Mrs. Ty- 
ler's husband and all her children — seven — became 
converts. One son became the Vicar-General of Bos- 
ton, and then the first Bishop of Hartford. Four of 

[312] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

the daughters became Sisters of Charity at Emmitts- 
burg. One loves to think of the sturdy Nabby Tyler 
and her great family. Surely there were giants in 
those clays! 

So passed the summer. Virgil and Father Ffrench 
had returned to Georgetown. Daniel Barber was 
thinking, studying, praying, and in November he made 
his farewell to the people of whom he had been pas- 
tor for nearly twenty-five years, telling them that to 
follow his conscience he must resign. Who knows 
what it cost him to snap all the ties of years ? In his 
conversion, no doubt, his wife played a great part. 
After his resignation he went south to visit some 
friends in Washington and Maryland, desirous of 
knowing more about the Church before entering it. 
During that absence he embraced the faith at George- 
town, and wrote letters to friends on the Catholic 
Church — letters that were afterwards published in a 
pamphlet entitled Catholic Worship, in which he gave 
his reasons for his change of faith. 

After the death of his beloved wife he determined 
to go south again. He wrote to his children on this 
occasion. His heart ached on leaving the scenes of so 
much happiness. "I look back again," he wrote, "to 
the pleasant scenes of early life. Here is one object 
ever presenting itself to my recollection : it is she who 
once, and for many years, was the kind associate of 
all my cares, my hopes and wishes. Yes, for many 
a year we traveled the rugged path of life together; 
and at a time, too, when the looks and smiles of our 

[313] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

helpless little children, dependent on us for their com- 
fort and protection, called into exercise every prin- 
ciple of care and activity. Our anxious desires for 
the future happiness and prosperity of these gave a 
pleasure to our toils, our labors and sufferings; our 
hearts comforting us, at the same time, with the full- 
est assurance that these same little ones, at a future 
time, would add greatly to our happiness by supplying 
our wants if needy, consoling our declining years, and 
wiping away from us the tears of sorrow and old age." 

Later on lie took minor orders and sometimes 
preached in the Cathedral at Boston. When Virgil 
was ordained and sent to Claremont it was an edify- 
ing sight to see the old man who had made so many 
sacrifices for his faith serving his son's Mass. Later 
he used to go from one Jesuit house to another, and 
visit different Catholic families. He died in 1834, at 
the age of seventy-eight, and was buried in the ceme- 
tery of the Jesuit mission at St. Inigoes, Maryland. 

Virgil Barber, on his return to Georgetown, set- 
tled down to his theological studies. After four years 
he was ordained in Boston by Bishop Cheverus on the 
feast of St. Francis Xavier in 1822. That Christmas 
he assisted as one of the officers at the Pontifical High 
Mass in the Boston Cathedral. From Boston he was 
sent to Claremont, where he was given charge of the 
Catholics, and where he labored zealously to make 
the faith known and loved. By his zeal many con- 
verts were made, entire families coming into the 
Church. In the winter of 1824 he visited Canada to 

[314] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

collect for the building of a church at Claremont, and 
there he was received kindly and helped, so that he 
was able to build a little church, the upper part of 
which served as an academy, where he himself taught, 
and where he had among his pupils such men as Fa- 
thers Wiley, Fitton, and Tyler, who later served the 
Church so well. Virgil was assisted in the academy 
by his father. So passed the happy days there. Mrs. 
Daniel Barber was very happy to have her own son 
as her pastor. She was the first to be buried in the 
graveyard near the little Catholic church. 

In that same fall Father Fenwick was chosen Bishop 
of Boston, and Father Barber, full of joy at this honor 
to his dear friend and benefactor, was present at his 
consecration in the Cathedral at Baltimore. On that 
occasion he went to Georgetown and visited the Con- 
vent of the Visitation to pay a farewell visit to his 
wife and children. It was the last time he saw them 
all together. "It was a tearful and sorrowful part- 
ing," his daughter wrote. The next day he set out for 
Boston with Bishop Fenwick and Bishop England, 
and on the Sunday following their arrival there Bishop 
Fenwick was installed, and Father Barber was deacon 
of the Mass. 

Father Barber then returned to his beloved parish at 
Claremont. It was composed of about one hundred 
and fifty persons, and most of them were converts. 
In the following May, Bishop Fenwick visited him 
there and administered the sacrament of Confirma- 
tion, the church being crowded, mostly with Protes- 
ts ] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

tants from the church on the opposite side of the 
village, which, the Bishop naively remarks in his 
diary, "they have completely deserted, to the very 
great dissatisfaction of the minister there attending." 
The following November Father Barber was called to 
Boston, and at the wish of the Bishop visited different 
places in New Hampshire and Maine. He was every- 
where received with great welcome by the scattered 
Catholics, who rejoiced to see a priest. Even among 
the Indians he found great piety, and regretted that 
there was no priest among them. Shortly after his 
return from this missionary journey he was recalled 
to Georgetown by his superiors, and a few weeks later 
the church at Claremont was closed. In later years, 
once in 1829 and again in 1830, he made brief visits to 
his old home. His last days were spent at George- 
town, and there he died in 1847. 

One cannot think of this man and the sacrifices made 
by him without being thrilled. It is like a page from 
the life of a great saint. There is a letter which Father 
Fitton, one of his pupils, who afterwards labored in 
East Boston, wrote to Sister Josephine, the baby in 
arms when the conversion of her parents took place. 
"I have still a vivid recollection," he wrote, "of your 
grandfather Daniel, his aged wife, son Israel, and 
daughter Rachel. Mrs. Tyler also, with her husband, 
sons, and daughters (Sisters of Charity), not omitting 
my sainted school-fellow, the late Bishop of Hartford. 
Many a little anecdote I could tell of the early days of 
Catholicity at Claremont, not forgetting Cornish, the 

[316] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

house of Captain Chase and sister, especially, whom, 
previous to their receiving the grace of faith, I was ac- 
customed to regard as the corner-stone of Calvinism! 
And there were the Marbles, and the Holdens, etc., all 
related to the Church by the footprints and untiring 
zeal of your own sainted Rev. Father, even of whom 
I must tell a secret. When his seminary was in full 
progress and the house adjoining was occupied by 
students, my curiosity was to know, if he ever slept, 
where did he sleep? And behold! I found his bed 
to be a strip of narrow carpet on the floor, which was 
privately rolled up by day and hid in the closet/' 

The Captain Chase and his family mentioned were 
faithful to the end. His sister Sarah joined the Ursu- 
lines at Boston, and was known as Sister Ursula. 
After the burning of the convent, she, with Sister Mary 
Joseph Barber, went to the convent at Three Rivers, 
Quebec, where she died at the age of eighty-eight. 

Sister Mary Joseph visited the Chase family in 
1830, and thus describes them: "The family was a 
saintly one ; they said morning and night prayers ; also 
the Rosary aloud every day, adding to the latter a sixth 
decade, 'For Father Barber.' On Sundays they recited 
the whole catechism through, and sang the Kyrie, 
Gloria, Credo, and Sanctus of the High Mass, Captain 
Chase and his wife presiding, and his eldest son ac- 
companying on the flageolet. Their family formed the 
choir, and they chanted the Mass not only through 
devotion, but in order to retain what they had learned, 
and to teach their children the same; for there was 

[317] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

then no priest in Claremont, but one from Burlington 
visited the station every three months, lodging at Cap- 
tain Chase's, where an apartment was always kept in 
reserve for him." 

While Father Barber was doing his great mission- 
ary work, his wife, as Sister Mary Augustine, was do- 
ing hers in the convent. After the days of trial in the 
novitiate, during which human nature, love of her 
husband, and love of her children fought against 
grace, there had come the peace of Christ. Her per- 
severance and her faith in God had triumphed. Her 
trials brought their reward. She saw all her children 
embrace the religious life, the greatest consolation that 
could be given to the heart of any mother. Hers was a 
life hidden with Christ in God. It was the life of a 
Sister, with few events to be recorded. She was nine- 
teen years at Georgetown, and then in 1836 went to 
aid in founding a house of the Order at Kaskaskia. 
There she remained eight years, and thence went to 
St. Louis, and then in 1848 to Mobile. Most of her 
life us a sister was spent in the work in which she ex- 
celled, that of training teachers. After an illness in 
which she edified all by her great patience, she died 
January 1, i860, thirteen years after her husband. 

What a story of faith and courage it is! And to 
the woman how much of it is due! How she might 
have pleaded against the call of God, that she had 
five little ones depending on her ; how she might have 
opposed the vocation of her husband on the plea that 
he belonged to her, that she loved him, that he was 

[318] 



JERUSHA BARBER 

necessary for her and her children. But she made 
all the sacrifices, — and hard sacrifices they were, the 
way before her many a time being dark, — and made 
them because she felt that God required them of her. 
If there is any woman who can be held up as an 
example of utmost trust in God, it is Jerusha Barber. 
Surely she deserves a high place in the roll of the 
Church's great wives and mothers. 



[319] 



MARY O'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE 
LIBERATOR 

(1775-1836) 

THE Irish mother! One speaks her name rev- 
erently. It is synonymous with all that is pure 
and sweet in life. A good mother is one of those 
things taken for granted in Ireland, such a truism 
that it begets little wonderment. It has rarely occu- 
pied the attention even of the poets. Search for 
mother-poems among the innumerable Irish ballads, 
and you will marvel at their scarcity. Just so, be- 
cause no one thinks it extraordinary that all Irish 
mothers should be holy and motherly. 

And that expression — holy and motherly — well de- 
scribes the typical Irish mother. Holiness and moth- 
erliness are her inheritance of the ages, her share of 
the world. No one so much as she has guided the 
destinies of Erin. The history of Ireland has been 
the struggle of truth against error, light against dark- 
ness, sanctity against sin. And there never could be 
any doubt about the outcome. All else must be sac- 
rificed rather than the faith. And in keeping that 
inviolate, what a share the Irish mother had! In 
the world, she never has been of it. Her eyes are 

[320] 



MARY 0'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

forever set on the Kingdom of God. She has sought 
no worldly advancement. Let others have that if 
they are foolish enough to want it. The one thing 
that has counted with her is God. 

Some one has said that the position of woman in 
any age is proportionate to that age's devotion to the 
Mother of God. That, more than anything else, ex- 
plains the character of the Irish mother. She is ever 
the friend of Mary. Mary is her exemplar, her ad- 
viser. Small wonder, then, that from centuries of 
looking to this model, she is pure, and holy, and duti- 
ful, and humble. 

The Irish mother is a philosopher, even when un- 
lettered ; a poet, though untrained ; wise with that wis- 
dom which she knows how to get out of her Rosary. 
She is, indeed, the handmaid of the Lord. Very 
often hers is a life's portion of labor, of bearing and 
rearing children, of struggle against poverty; yet her 
eyes never lose their gentleness and their wistfulness. 
Hers is a world where fairies mingle with men, but, 
more than all, a world where the eyes behold the 
finger of God directing the most trivial things. 

The will of God ! That is the secret of her philos- 
ophy. Come famine, come exile, come misery, it is 
all bearable because of the will of God shining 
through. And when prosperity comes, it does not 
change her. Simplicity of soul is her birthright. She 
desires no greater glory than to be queen of her home, 
the mother of men. 

Rich or poor, of high or humble station, the Irish 
[321] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

mother is always the same. Ireland has her mother- 
saints among her gentlewomen as among her peas- 
ants. She has glorified wifehood and motherhood, she 
has kept marriage a holy thing, and that is not the 
least of the proofs that the faith of St. Patrick has 
not failed. Canon Sheehan says somewhere in My 
New Curate: 

"Married life in Ireland has been up to now the 
most splendid refutation of all that the world and its 
gospel, the novel, preach about marriage, and the 
most splendid and complete justification of the super- 
naturalism of the Church's dogmas and practices." 

There is one great Irish wife and mother that we 
choose as a type. There have been many as great 
as she. Indeed, she would be the last one to lay 
claim to any greatness. She was, to her own mind, 
just an ordinary, happy wife and mother, looking 
after the comforts of her husband, answering the calls 
of her seven children. 

But Mary O'Connell is especially appealing to the 
Irish Catholic from the fact that she was the wife 
of him to whom Ireland and the faith owe so much — 
the immortal Liberator. 

To read the life of Daniel O'Connell even to-day 
is to be thrilled. No man ever had such influence 
with his followers. Greville well says: "History 
will speak of him as one of the most remarkable men 
who ever existed ; he will fill a great space in its pages. 
His position was unique; there never was before, and 
there never will be again, anything at all resembling 

[322] 



MARY O'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

it." And Fagan, one of his biographers, does not 
hesitate to declare that he was "the greatest man this 
[Ireland] or any other country ever produced." 

Where was the secret of that power? In his great 
character, of course, a character that was, first and 
foremost, formed by religion. Yet hand in hand with 
that influence went another — that of the wife he idol- 
ized. As he said once at a banquet in Edinburgh, 
when responding to a toast to the health of his wife: 
"A man cannot battle and struggle with the malig- 
nant enemies of his country unless his nest at home 
is warm and comfortable." It is said that at all 
the banquets in his honor there was sure to be a toast 
to "the health of Mrs. O'Connell, the pattern of moth- 
ers, the pattern of wives — a lady whose charitable 
and exemplary conduct sheds lustre upon her sex and 
station." On one occasion he replied to this toast 
with these words : 

"To the lady whose health you have drunk I owe 
most of the happiness of my life. The home made 
delightful by my family is, after the cares and agi- 
tation of professional and public life, a most blessed 
retreat. I am, indeed, happy in that home, happy in 
a dear wife, happy in children into whose minds a 
fond mother early and carefully instilled a reverence 
for religion, the love of God and the love of country." 

On another occasion he said: "There are some 
topics of so sacred and sweet a nature that they may 
be comprehended by those who are happy, but can- 
not possibly be described by any human being. All 

[323] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

that I shall do is to thank you in the name of her 
who was the disinterested choice of my youth, and 
who was the ever-cheerful companion of my manly 
years." 

Surely it was no small service for a woman to 
have been the inspiration of one who served his God 
and his country so whole-heartedly. And that alone 
would entitle Mary O'Connell to a high place on the 
honor-roll of the great women of all time. The debt 
to O'Connell for his work for Catholic Emancipa- 
tion cannot be fully paid without a tribute to his wife, 
the idol of his heart. 

O'Connell was, indeed, blessed in all his women- 
folk. A loving and dutiful son, he pays a noble tribute 
to his mother, to whom he ascribes much of his suc- 
cess. She was a pious, sensible and affectionate wo- 
man, a typical Irish mother. The only picture we 
have of her shows a face far from beautiful, yet with 
roguish eyes and a delightfully humorous smile. Her 
maiden name was Kate O'Mullane, and she was thor- 
oughly Irish. In 1841 O'Connell wrote of her: 

"I am the son of a sainted mother, who watched 
over my childhood with the most faithful care. She 
was of a high order of intellect, and what little I 
possess was bequeathed me by her. I may in fact 
say without vanity that the superior situation in which 
I am placed by my countrymen has been owing to her. 
Her last breath was passed, I thank Heaven, in call- 
ing down blessings on my head. And I have valued 
her blessing since. In the perils and dangers to which 

[324] 



MARY O'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

I have been exposed through life, I have regarded 
her blessing as an angel's shield over me; and as it 
has been my protection in this life, I look forward 
to it also as one of the means of obtaining hereafter 
a happiness greater than any this world can give." 

One would like to know more of this mother of 
ten children, who merited from her famous son such 
a tender tribute. 

His grandmother, too — his father's mother — was a 
notable woman, — "remarkable," all the biographers 
call her. Indeed, she was remarkable alone from the 
fact that she had twenty-two children. But she had 
also great intellectual talent. When her son, the future 
Count O'Connell, the "last Colonel of the Irish Bri- 
gade," then aged sixteen, left his native land to enter 
the service of France in 1761, taking with him eigh- 
teen Irish recruits, four of them his cousins, she 
showed that she was a true poet in the lament she 
composed in Irish on that occasion. The mother of 
twenty-two children, yet writing poetry — surely that 
is possible only among the Irish! 

O'Connell was twenty-seven years old when he mar- 
ried his cousin, Mary O'Connell. He was at that 
time a rising young lawyer who had met with suc- 
cess on the circuit, and who had already made his 
first political speech against the proposed Union. 

She was the daughter of a Dr. O'Connell of Tralee, 
a man highly respected for his professional skill, but 
with very little of the goods of this world. He was, 
indeed, unable to provide his daughter with a dowry. 

[325] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Maurice O'Connell, Daniel's uncle, who had adopted 
him and was likely to make him his heir to the prop- 
erty at Derrynane, was not in favor of the match on 
account of the lack of money. Exercising his rights 
over his adopted nephew, he had already selected a 
wife for Daniel, and the chosen lady was a spinster 
who was well endowed with money if not with youth 
and beauty. But poor Mary Ann Healy, rich as she 
was, was not the woman to win the heart of a ro- 
mantic young lawyer. Daniel was aware that in 
following the dictates of his heart instead of the 
wishes of his uncle he was likely to be disinherited, 
but that gave him little worry about his decision. He 
was in love with Mary O'Connell and, after all, that 
was the only thing that counted. "I never," said he 
to his secretary in 1843, ^ on S after the death of his 
wife, "proposed marriage to any woman but one — my 
Mary. I said to her, 'Are you engaged, Miss O'Con- 
nell?' She answered, 'I am not.' 'Then,' said I, 'will 
you engage yourself to me?' 'I will,' was her reply. 
And I said I would devote my life to make her happy. 
She deserved that I should. I thought my uncle would 
disinherit me, but I did not care. I was richly re- 
warded by subsequent happiness. She gave me thirty- 
four years of the purest happiness that man ever en- 
joyed." 

It was a marriage of true love, and O'Connell and 
his wife were always supremely happy. But it did 
not take place without opposition. All the kinsmen 
of Daniel, worrying, perhaps, about Derrynane and 

[326] 



MARY O'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

Uncle Maurice, were set against the marriage. Letter 
after letter was written to dissuade him, but to no 
avail. The marriage was privately celebrated at the 
home of Mary's brother-in-law, James Connor, in 
Dublin, on the twenty-third of June, 1802. 

They kept it quiet for several months. But at last 
it was known to all. Old Maurice was especially in- 
dignant, and he never quite forgave Dan, even though 
he did not disinherit him. Two years after the mar- 
riage we find Count O'Connell writing to Maurice 
in behalf of the criminal. "His fate," pleaded the 
Count, "must be truly deplorable if you irrevocably 
cast him off. The bare perquisites of his profession 
are probably very inadequate to the support of a wife 
and family, besides his personal expenses." In due 
time the old man relented. 

Mary O'Connell was not a woman of remarkable 
intellect, but she understood her husband and sympa- 
thized with him in all his work. Who knows how 
much of what he accomplished was due to that sym- 
pathy? She was his helpmate and his companion. 
She gave him a quiet home, and while he was away 
corresponded with him. She was a quiet source of 
strength, a gentle, sweet creature, who had, as her 
husband testifies, "the sweetest, the most heavenly tem- 
per." He tells this little incident to show his wife's 
character. Speaking, one day, of Mary's old aunt, 
with whom she used to live, he said : "It was my 
delight to quiz the old lady by pretending to complain 
of Mary's want of temper. 'Madam,' said I, 'Mary 

[327] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

would do very well, only she is so cross/ 'Cross, sir? 
My Mary cross? Sir, you must have provoked her 
very much! You must yourself be quite in fault! 
My little girl was always the gentlest, sweetest crea- 
ture born.' " 

How O'Connell idolized his wife is seen from his 
letters. One of his biographers says: "In thorough 
contrast to his wrathful tone on public questions are 
the tender letters to his wife and daughter." 

O'Connell declared himself "the very worst letter- 
writer in the world." But he could write to Mary. 
Here is a letter written shortly after their marriage. 
It is dated from Dublin, November 25, 1802, when 
Mary was, very likely, still living with her aunt. 

"Darling," he says, "I can write but a few lines, 
as it is grown so late and my time is small. I was 
finishing some law business which I had solemnly 
promised to dispose of this night. You will know, 
my heart's dearest treasure, that whether I write few 
or many words, there certainly is not in the world a 
man who more fondly dotes on, or who so anxiously 
longs for the arms of his wife. Day and night you 
are continually present to my fond thoughts, and you 
always increase my happiness or lessen my cares. With 
you I could live with pleasure in the prison or the 
desert. You are my all of company, and if I can but 
preserve your love I shall have in it more of true de- 
light than can be imagined by any one but he who 
sincerely loves. 

"Sweet Mary, I rave of you! I think only of you! 
[328] 



MARY C0NNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

I sigh for you, I weep for you ! I almost pray to you ! 
Darling, I do not — indeed, I do not — exaggerate. If 
there be more of vehemence in my expressions, believe 
me that vehemence has its justification in my heart — 
a heart that is devoted to the most enticing of her sex. 
Indeed, you are a dear, charming little woman. Your 
last letter I have read again and again. It is in every 
respect a most pleasing letter to me, not only from 
the heart-flowing strain of tenderness in which it is 
written, but the saucy gaiety of some of the passages 
show me how much recovered my love is. . . . 

"Mary, how fondly I shall cherish the little stranger 
coming! I hope it may be a daughter, and as like 
you as possible. O God, how I then will love her! 
How sincerely will I express my affection to the 
mother in the caresses I bestow on the child ! Dearest, 
sweetest wife, I can thus hope to be able to prove to 
you the pleasing affection with which my whole soul 
dotes on you. 

"Dearest, I am writing this with great rapidity, but 
still my thoughts run much faster than my pen. I 
could praise you a thousand times faster than I write, 
as I love you a thousand times more than I can tell. 
I shall soon see you, dearest darling. Love to dear 
mother. 

"Ever your devoted husband, 

"Daniel O'Connell. 

"In a week we shall be able to fix the time of our 
departure. Happy, happy moment that gives me my 
sweet wife again !" 

[329] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

As the years went by and the children came, their 
love seemed to increase. In 1812 he writes to her: 

"My Dearest Mary : 

"I was a little impertinent in my letter of yester- 
day, and the reason was because I found myself de- 
cidedly in more business than any other individual 
here; and so, dear heart, I avenged myself upon you, 
which was poor spite. I, however, now forgive you, 
darling, because you promised me so faithfully to take 
care of yourself and grow fat in my absence. Seri- 
ously, love, I am quite in a temper to indulge vanity, 
but in nothing more so than in you and my sweet, 
sweet babes. Darling, you have no idea of the time 
I take in thinking of you and them, and in doting 
upon both. Kiss them a thousand times for their 
father, and tell them he will not be happy until he has 
his three little girls on his knees and his three boys 
looking at him there. . . . Tell each and every one 
of the babes how I love them. Ask John if he ever 
intends to get a tooth. . . ." 

She was his idol, and he was hers. Fifteen years 
after their marriage she could write : 

"My Own Darling Dan : 

"I assure you, my darling, you are our continual 
subject. When a kind husband or father is spoken 
of, Ellen or Kate will exclaim, 'Mamma, sure he is 
not so good a husband or father as our father is.' 
You may guess, darling, what my reply is. You know 

[330] 



MARY O'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

what you deserve, and you are aware that in exist- 
ence I don't think there is such a husband and father 
as you are and always have been. Indeed, I think 
it quite impossible there could; and if the truest and 
tenderest affection can repay you, believe me that I 
feel and bear it for you. In truth, my own Dan, I 
am always at a loss for words to convey to you how 
I love you and dote on you. Many and many a time 
I exclaim to myself, 'What a happy creature am I! 
How grateful I should be to Providence for bestow- 
ing on me such a husband!' And so, indeed, I am. 
We will, Love, shortly be fifteen years married, and 
I can answer that I never have had cause to repent 
it. I have, darling, experienced all the happiness of 
the married state without feeling any of its cares, 
thanks to a fond and indulgent husband. . . ." 

What a solicitous love she had for him is evident 
from this practical letter, written about the same time, 
when he was at the Cork assizes: 

"My Dearest Love: 

"I wish to God you could contrive to get out of 
court for a quarter of an hour during the middle 
of the day to take a bowl of soup or a snack of some 
kind. Surely, though you may not be able to spare 
time to go to a tavern, could not James get anything 
you wished for from the Bar mess at your lodgings, 
which is merely a step from the court-house? Do, 
my heart, try to accomplish this; for, really, I am 

[33i] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

quite unhappy to have you fasting from an early hour 
in the morning until nine or ten o'clock at night. I 
wish I were with you to make you take care of your- 
self. ,, 

It was always that practical devotion she had to- 
wards him. No wonder he could write to her : "You 
sweetest, know how miserable it makes me to be kept 
away from you, when all my happiness in this world 
rests in my family. . . . Lay it to your heart, dar- 
ling, that there never was a woman so loved." Truly, 
marriage among the Irish is a great sacrament ! 

Nearly twenty years after their marriage O'Connell 
writes : 

"My Heart's Darling: 

"I got your affectionate letter of Wednesday, and 
felt the extreme happiness of having so tender a part- 
ner of every care and every joy. I could write some- 
thing like poetry to my own darling if I thought that 
it would express more strongly what I feel. I can- 
not tell you how my heart languishes to be with you, 
or express that kind of seething of the heart which 
I feel at being so long absent from you, but I will 
indeed hasten to meet you. . . ." 

And after nearly a quarter of a century, he could 
write as if of "love's young dream" : 

"My Own and Only Love: 

"It was Kate wrote me the letter I got this morning, 
and I do most tenderly love Kate. Yet, sweetest 

[332] 



MARY O C0NNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

Mary, I could have wished to see one line also in that 
handwriting which gives me recollections of the hap- 
piest hours of my life, and still blesses me with in- 
expressible sweetness and comfort when we, darling, 
are separated. All the romance of my mind envelops 
you, and I am as romantic in my love this day as I 
was twenty-three years ago, when you dropped your 
not unwilling hand into mine. Darling, will you smile 
at the love-letters of your old husband? Oh, no; 
my Mary — my own Mary will remember that she 
had the fond and faithful affection of my youth, and 
that, if years have rolled over us, they have given us 
no cause to respect or love each other less than we 
did early in life. At least, darling, so think I. Do 
not smile, either, at the mere circumstance of not get- 
ting a letter making me somewhat melancholy. It is 
so cheering to my heart to hear from you — it is so 
delicious to me to read what you write, that indeed I 
cannot but feel lonely when I do not read your words." 

It was a happy life they lived at Derrynane on 
the Kerry coast. O'Connell lived among his tenants 
like a feudal chief. His home was at all times filled 
with guests. There was always hospitality, and al- 
ways the spirit of religion. The Chaplain occupied 
the place of honor. There was the family chapel, and 
there all the members of the household met in daily 
prayer. Through it all was infused the spirit of Mary 
O'Connell. She was the head of the family, the guide 
even of the great Liberator himself. Her heart was 

[333] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

fixed on her husband and her children. It was from 
watching her that O'Connell knew what influence a 
good mother has. On one occasion his son-in-law, 
Charles Bianconi, asked his advice about sending his 
daughter away to school. "Oh, no, no, no," answered 
O'Connell; "never take her from her mother. Get 
a governess to assist her mother in little Kate's edu- 
cation, but never take the child from the mother's 
care. The tender affection of the mother educates the 
daughter's heart." 

But Mary O'Connell was more than a guide to 
her children. She was her husband's strength in 
times of difficulty. In 1830, when he refused a peer- 
age, she wrote him this letter : 

"My Dearest Love: 

"Thank God you have acted like yourself, and your 
wife and children have more reason to be proud of 
you than they ever were. Had you acted differently 
from what you have done, it would have broken my 
heart. You can't abandon the people, who have al- 
ways stood by you, and for whom you have sacri- 
ficed so much. You will, darling, be rewarded for all ; 
you will have the prayers and blessings of your coun- 
try to cheer and console you for what you have given 
up. Had you been betrayed into acceptance of the 
terms offered by the government, you would die of 
a broken heart before six months expired. 

"You now stand firmly in the affections and in the 
love of your countrymen, and when that country is 

[334] 



MARY o'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

aware of the splendid sacrifice you have now made 
for them, depend upon it, they will strain every nerve 
to reward you. I shall hold up my head higher than 
ever I did. I sha'n't be afraid to look at the people, 
as I certainly should if you were a titled prisoner of 
the government. 

"I sha'n't say a word, as they give you their senti- 
ments, their respective signatures attached. I never 
saw anything like the pleasure that danced in their 
eyes when assured of your refusal. May God bless 
you, my own love. Words are inadequate to tell 
you how much I love and respect you for this late 
act, so like and so worthy of yourself. My heart 
overflows with gratitude and pride for being the wife 
of such a man and the mother of such grateful chil- 
dren. 

"The report through town yesterday and to-day 
is that you are to be the new Master of the Rolls. 
You may rely on our discretion, though we long to 
have the great news public. What a welcome you 
will get from the people of Ireland! May God bless 
and protect you. You will carry the Repeal of the 
Union without bloodshed, as you did the Emanci- 
pation. I put my trust in that God who sees and 
knows the purity of your heart. I can't write more 
here, there are so many in and out. With love from 
your children, believe me, always with truth, 

"Your fondest and most grateful 

"Mary O'Connell." 
[335] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

No wonder O'Connell was proud of her, a wife 
who could rejoice to see him refuse a peerage! No 
wonder that he dreaded to lose this great prop. When 
she was lying on her bed of death he wrote to his 
friend, Richard Barrett: 

"God help me! My beloved is in a state of much 
suffering, and daily losing ground. I do most potently 
fear she cannot recover. She may linger. One week 
may — O God, help me ! The purest spirit that ever 
dwelt in a human breast. She did not believe in the 
existence of evil. I am incompetent or too womanish 
and too weak to do my public duty, and that is what 
she would condemn. But I think I can rally. She 
would advise me to devote my energies, even in mis- 
ery, to Ireland. I need not smile, for that would re- 
semble a crime; but what am I writing! Only, after 
all, my great consolation will be a dogged and deter- 
mined activity in the cause of Ireland." 

After she died, in October, 1836, he wrote: "I 
can never again know happiness, and every day con- 
vinces me more and more of that fact." At that 
time he said at a temperance meeting in Belfast : "I 
am a father, and I know what it is to respect as well 
as love those whom, in paternal language, I call my 
angel daughters. They have never given breath to 
a word of offence against me ; they have always been 
dutiful and kind to me; their affection soothes every 
harsher moment of my life; and whatever storms I 
may be engaged in abroad, when I return home I have, 

[336] 



MARY O'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

as it were, attendant angels waiting about me and 
cheering me on to. renewed exertion. But that subject 
brings me back to a being of whom I dare not speak 
in the profanation of words. No, I will not mention 
that name. The man who is happiest in his domestic 
circle may have some idea of what my happiness was. 
Yes, I was her husband then — Did I say was ? Oh, 
yes, I am her husband still. The grave may separate 
us for a time, but we shall meet again beyond it, 
never, I trust, to be separated more." 

No wonder that, after her death, he seemed like a 
different man. She had been the only being to whom 
he could unbosom himself, and her death was a shock 
from which he never recovered. He often adverted 
to her memory. Towards the end his fits of despond- 
ency were frequent, and death was welcome. 

The year after her death he wrote: "I never had 
so much reason to remain in this country as long as 
I can, save 'the aching void left craving at my heart.' 
I can never again know happiness, and every day 
convinces me more and more of that fact." Later on 
he said of her: 

"She sleeps in an abbey ruin which rears its moul- 
dering head above the ever-dashing billows of the 
Atlantic — a wild but sublime resting-place, typical 
alike of the past and present fortunes of Ireland, 
once resounding to the choral hymn of praise, now 
crumbling and desolate. Swept by the storms and 
deluged by the spray of the wintry ocean, which 
bathes its rocky foundations, it bids defiance to time, 

[337] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

preserves the memory of the past, the relics of ages of 
piety, and the ashes of the faithful repose within 
those desolate but consecrated walls. Requiescat in 
pacer 

So she passed, that great wife and mother, with a 
blessing of love to him, her idol, a blessing which he 
called "an angel's shield." One of their daughters 
wrote : 

"My mother was exactly the wife to suit my father 
in every way. She was devotedly attached to him, 
and she sympathized with him as thoroughly in his 
public as in his private life. She knew that it was 
necessary for the success of affairs, both of law and 
politics, with which his mind was occupied continu- 
ally, that he should never be troubled with household 
affairs ; and she therefore, while regulating her family 
with the greatest exactness, took care never to harass 
him with any of her domestic troubles, as so many 
unthinking women are in the habit of doing. On 
the contrary, she endeavored to arrange matters so 
that he should never find anything but peace and re- 
pose at his own fireside." 

Mary O'Connell was, indeed, a tower of strength 
to the great Liberator. And surely, in being that, 
she rendered an invaluable service, not only to him, 
but to Ireland and the faith. Father Ventura, in his 
famous eulogy of O'Connell, a eulogy that took four 
hours to deliver, mentioned the share which the Irish 
women had in what he accomplished. 

"Not a little singular, too," said he, "was the en- 
[338] 



MARY O'CONNELL, WIFE OF THE LIBERATOR 

thusiasm, the fidelity, and the affection with which, by 
his disinterestedness, his charity, and his zeal on be- 
half of liberty and religion, he had succeeded in in- 
spiring the women of Ireland. This feminine enthu- 
siasm contributed not a little to' that great moral force' 
by which he controlled his countrymen. Let those 
learn this truth, who, devoid of foresight, mentally 
blind, and with hearts steeled to every softer feeling, 
consider themselves alone qualified to govern mankind, 
of whose nature they are ignorant. Let them learn 
that when an idea, whether political or religious, con- 
ceived by the intellect of man, once finds its way into 
the heart of woman and there becomes a sentiment, 
its power increases so prodigiously that no resistance 
to it will avail. 

"The women of Ireland, then, were on the side 
of O'Connell, whom they looked on as the sole sup- 
porter and vindicator of their common country and 
religion. They it was who maintained in vigor that 
affection towards him which existed in the hearts of 
the fathers, husbands, and sons, and which strength- 
ened and encouraged them cheerfully to submit to 
every sacrifice for the sake of their common Liber- 
ator." 

Of that glorious tribute to Irish womanhood, Mary 
O'Connell should have the greatest part, for without 
her the O'Connell that we know would have been 
impossible. 

After the winning of Emancipation the Liberator 
was called "the Uncrowned King of Ireland." If 

[ 339 ] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

so, surely she deserved to be called the Queen, that 
humble mother who hid herself from the world and 
found her dearest throne in the hearts of her hus- 
band and her children. Surely she was a great wife 
and mother, such as that other of whom Holy Scrip- 
ture says: "The heart of her husband trusteth in 
her, and he shall have no need of spoils. She will 
render him good, and not evil, all the days of her 
life. . . . Her children rose up, and called her blessed ; 
her husband, and he praised her." 



[340] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 
(1812-1885) 

CARDINAL NEWMAN had very little associa- 
tion, either personally or in writing, with Lady 
Georgiana Fullerton; yet in a few words he has left 
one of the best tributes ever paid to her. When Mrs, 
Craven, that other great Catholic who with her pen 
so well served her religion, was writing the life 
of her dear friend, Lady Fullerton, he wrote to her 
that since he had become a Catholic he had looked 
upon Lady Fullerton "with reverence and admira- 
tion for her saintly life." That was a great deal, 
coming from the saintly Newman. And then he 
wrote what may be considered a suitable epitaph for 
her, calling her "a fit representative of those ladies 
of rank and position in society who, during the last 
half -century, have thought it little to become Catho- 
lics by halves, and who have devoted their lives and 
all they were to our Lord's service." 

Their lives and all they were to God's service! To 
no one can these words be better applied than to 
Lady Fullerton, "one of the simplest and humblest 
souls ever seen, perhaps, outside the walls of a clois- 
ter." Born of a family in which gentility had been 

[34i] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

for centuries an inheritance, having an assured social 
position in the most exclusive set, a woman of ex- 
traordinary literary talent, an admirable musician, a 
linguist, — a woman, in short, of the most exquisite 
culture, she was, in spite of all that, the humblest and 
most grateful of Catholics, using social position, liter- 
ary talent, her life and all she was to glorify God and 
to help her neighbor. 

Lady Fullerton raised an enduring monument to 
her own fame in the many books she wrote. She is 
not read to-day perhaps as much as she should be by 
the Catholics to whom she gave all her talents ; never- 
theless, we believe that much of her work will live on 
account of its real beauty and its honesty of senti- 
ment. 

But we are not making here a literary study of this 
great woman. Rather do we wish to review her life 
as an example of the saintly wife and mother, a 
mother that suffered the greatest affliction a mother 
can suffer, yet used even her sorrow to bring her soul 
nearer to God. All cannot be great writers, but all 
can imitate her humility, her immolation of self, her 
life of prayer and penance, her charity to the poor, 
her zeal for God's Church — in a word, her complete 
submission to the will of God. 

Her maiden name was Georgiana Charlotte Leve- 
son-Gower. Her father was Lord Granville Leveson- 
Gower, the youngest son of the first Marquis of Staf- 
ford. He was created Viscount Granville in 1815, 
and Earl Granville in 1833. Her mother was Lady 

[342] 



LADY GEORGIAN A FULLERTON 

Harriet Cavendish, an excellent woman, daughter of 
the fifth Duke of Devonshire. When the little Geor- 
giana was born in 1812, she came to a family that was 
allied to the finest English aristocracy, with an ances- 
try on both sides that had been of importance in the 
service of their country. Among her near relatives 
were the Dukes of Norfolk, of Beaufort, of Suther- 
land, of Westminster, of Argyll, and of Leinster, and 
the Earls of Carlisle, of Harrowby, and of Ellesmere. 
It was in every way an excellent family, not in rank 
only, but in the real things of life, — in honor, in vir- 
tue, in affectionate and sacred family life. With all 
this nobility and fortune, there was no nonsense in 
that family. Georgiana's mother, the Countess Gran- 
ville, was a great lady, a woman of fine culture, a 
woman of society, but also of a great sense of respon- 
sibility in the bringing up of her children. Her chief 
care was not for their social advancement, but for 
their education as good men and women and practical 
Christians. She had a fine reverence for the things of 
religion. She placed the two girls, Georgiana and 
Susan, under the care of an excellent governess, who 
did not scruple to make them endure what even poor 
children would consider hardship. 

"I used to be kept awake by the iciness of my feet 
in bed,' , wrote Georgiana later; "but as I was the 
strongest of girls, I was ashamed to complain of it. 
Our food, too, was of a very austere description, and 
we had not very much of it." 

Even in those days the character of the woman who 
[343] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

later on sought to be a saint was being formed. But 
she was far from being pious. She was having a 
good time, and religion had no special attraction for 
her. The family was, of course, Protestant, and their 
religion was mostly an external thing that had little 
appeal to the affections. They went to church on Sun- 
days, had their morning and evening prayers, and read 
their Bible daily. Religion was not that gripping 
thing which it is to the Catholic. Yet even in those 
childhood days the little Georgiana, in the midst of 
her dances and her other good times in a luxurious 
home, was troubled with a sense of sin, so much so 
that she was scrupulous over the smallest faults. 

When she was eleven years old, her father, Vis- 
count Granville, was sent as ambassador to the Hague. 
But he remained there only a short time, being trans- 
ferred as ambassador to France. There he remained 
for four years, and it may be seen that the associa- 
tion of Georgiana with the religion of France in those 
impressionable years from twelve to sixteen must have 
had an influence upon her life, even though she little 
suspected it. It was a pleasant life for a young girl, 
being introduced to royalty, and seeing all the fine 
people that came to her father's house. 

When she was sixteen her father returned with his 
family to England, and there they remained three 
years, during which time the young girls made their 
debut in English society. In 1831 Lord Granville was 
reappointed ambassador to France. Georgiana was 
now nineteen, and spent in Paris the next ten years of 

[344] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

her life. It was a position to turn the head of a girl, 
admitted as she was to the best society, welcomed at 
court, and soon an intimate friend of Queen Marie 
Amelie and her family. The life at the embassy was 
brilliant ; there were always the best people there, the 
leading men of the day, and Georgiana loved the ex- 
citement. It was good to be alive in those days. 
"Georgy likes going out," said her mother of her. 
No wonder ! Any girl in her position would have en- 
joyed to the full such a life. And yet it did not spoil 
her. Better than the social whirl did she love the 
family circle, loved to be with her mother, sewing and 
talking, loved to welcome home to the embassy her 
brothers when they came on a visit, and preferred to 
ride with them rather than go to the most brilliant 
reception in the gay capital. 

In 1833 her sister Susan married Lord Rivers, and 
the parting of the two sisters who had been insepa- 
rable, and who had loved each other tenderly, was the 
first break in what had been a life of calm. But the 
separation was made endurable from the fact that 
Georgiana, too, was at that time looking forward 
to her own marriage. She was in love with Alex- 
ander George Fullerton, and he with her. He was 
then an officer in the Guards, and was heir to his 
father's estates in England and Ireland. But Lord 
Granville wanted the ma»rriage postponed indefinitely, 
as he did not think young Fullerton had enough in- 
come to support his daughter in the style to which she 
had been accustomed. Georgiana, though she felt 

[3451 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

keenly the disappointment, did not oppose her father's 
decision. She agreed to wait. She did not have to 
wait long, however, for her uncle, the Duke of Devon- 
shire, took a hand in the matter, and out of his love 
for the young people helped to arrange things so that 
it was decided that young Fullerton should resign 
from the army and live with his wife at the embassy, 
where they would be of great service in helping in the 
affairs of the Ambassador. 

So they were married in July, 1833. It was a mar- 
riage of the greatest happiness. They were devoted 
to each other then, and as devoted at the end, after 
a life of more than fifty years together in joy and 
sorrow. We get a glimpse of Georgiana's happiness in 
those days when, a few months after her marriage, she 
wrote : 

"I am in truth the happiest person in the world in 
every way. I suppose my husband is not perfect, for 
no one is in this world, but he is certainly very nearly 
so. His unutterable gentleness is joined to great firm- 
ness and the gaiety of a child. He loves application, 
and has need of occupation which does not let him be 
a moment idle. If, with such a teacher as he is, I 
do not acquire a love for occupation, I shall certainly 
be incorrigible. I don't think there is happiness on 
earth equal to mine. I love him in a way which makes 
me tremble, for he is all I have in the world." 

It was surely one of the marriages made in heaven. 
Under God, Lady Fullerton owed all that she became 
to the excellent man who for more than half a cen- 

[346] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

tury was her companion, her strength, and her leader 
into the Catholic Church. 

Her cup of joy, already full, was overflowing with 
the birth of her son, a year after her marriage. Her 
husband and her baby gave Georgiana a new view of 
life. She began to think more of the things of eter- 
nity, now that her life was settled, and the gay social 
times made less of an appeal to her. No doubt this 
beginning of serious thought was due in a great meas- 
ure to the serious thought of her husband. Indeed, 
it was a time when religion was being revived in Eng- 
land. The year before her marriage the Oxford 
movement had begun. The spirit of Newman and his 
great associates was putting life into the dead body of 
the Anglican Church. The cultured people were read- 
ing the Tracts for the Times and listening to those 
sermons of Newman that struck a strange note; and 
it is not surprising that Lady Georgiana and her hus- 
band were among the most interested. Religion be- 
came for them a serious matter. Added to this in- 
fluence was a visit which she made with her husband 
to Genoa and Turin, where she was edified by Catho- 
lic society, and where for the first time in her life she 
came upon a Catholic book. It was the Introduction 
to a Devout Life of St. Francis de Sales. All these 
things were preparing her soul for the great grace of 
conversion, which did not come, however, for some 
years. But her increased devotion to the religion of 
the church in which she had been baptized turned her 
attention to the poor. And even as a Protestant she 

[347] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

began that work of charity to which, in one form or 
another, her whole life was to be devoted. She found 
plenty of opportunity among the poor of Paris, and 
she did not spare herself. 

"My child," said her mother to her one day as the 
young wife came home looking worn out, "you work 
yourself too hard." 

"Mamma," said Georgiana, "we can never work too 
hard for God." 

That might be taken as the motto of her life as a 
Catholic. 

When Lord Granville resigned the ambassadorship 
in 1 84 1, the family went to travel on the Continent. 
It was on this journey that the first suffering came 
into the life of Lady Fullerton, in the illness of the 
child she so adored. 

"I do not know," she wrote, "how I could bear the 
anxiety about a child so fearfully precious, without 
the deep conviction I have in the goodness of God and 
of His boundless power, if He wills, to spare the life 
of my only child, as He often raises up children for 
whom we have never trembled." 

God did spare the life of the child then, but only to 
make the cross heavier a few years later, when by his 
death the very heart of the mother was crushed for- 
ever. 

One sees the hand of God in the journey made at 
that time. The family spent the winter at Rome, and 
the sight of the Eternal City made a lasting impres- 
sion upon Lady Fullerton. But. the visit was of 

[348] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

greater importance to her husband. He had been look- 
ing into the doctrines of the Catholic Church, but even 
his wife did not know of his investigations. He did 
not trouble her with his doubts. He was attending 
to the affairs of his own soul. 

One thing that made a deep impression upon him 
during this visit to Rome was the conversion of Al- 
phonse Ratisbonne. 

Ratisbonne was a bigoted Jew. One day he en- 
tered the Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte with a 
friend who was showing him about Rome. The 
Comte de la Ferronnays, the father of Countess 
Craven, who was later to be such a friend of Lady 
Fullerton and also her biographer, was to be buried 
from that church the following day, and the friend of 
Ratisbonne went to speak to some of the priests in 
regard to the funeral. While he was absent, our Lady 
appeared to Ratisbonne. He was converted imme- 
diately, and the incident created a sensation in Rome. 
This story, when told to Fullerton, had a great effect 
on him, and no doubt hastened his conversion. When 
his wife and her family left Rome in the middle of 
April, he remained behind, and was received into the 
Catholic Church at the Gesu. He then rejoined the 
travelers, and told his wife the story of his conversion. 
Needless to say, she was shocked at the news, since 
she had not even suspected that he was under instruc- 
tion. They had ever been of one mind in everything, 
and now came the separation. There was something 

[349] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

to stand between them and their love, even though that 
something was religion. 

Would Lady Fullerton ever have become a Catholic 
if her husband had not shown the way? It is hard 
to say. But even then her soul was torn with doubt. 
It was a great deal for a Protestant of her position 
to think of becoming a Catholic. It was against all 
the traditions of her family and the society of which 
she was an intimate. She longed for the truth, yet 
when it came to the decision she almost prayed to find 
the Catholic faith false. "Great was the struggle, 
fierce the fight," she writes in describing her search 
for truth. 

And during this struggle she began her first novel. 
The chief motive she had in writing was to get money 
for her poor. Indeed, writing was never really a 
pleasure for her. It was a task. Later on she wanted 
to lay down her pen to avoid the temptation of pride, 
but she was prevailed upon to continue it as a duty, 
so that she was never moved by the mere desire of 
literary glory. 

Her first work was Ellen Middleton, a book which, 
strangely for a Protestant writer, preached the neces- 
sity of confession and the crying need of the soul for 
absolution from sin. The novel created a furore at 
once. Georgiana Fullerton awoke one day to find her- 
self famous. Gladstone reviewed it at length and gave 
it unlimited praise. He was enthusiastic about the 
new writer, but afterwards, when she became a Catho- 
lic, he almost cut her. All the great critics were em- 

[350] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

phatic in their commendation of the book; even Miss 
Martineau praised it. In fact, everybody spoke well 
of it, so much so that it went through many editions 
and was translated into foreign languages. It did for 
the people what the scholarly men of the Oxford 
movement did for the learned: it gave them a long- 
ing for the Catholic life, which the author, even while 
she was a Protestant, had delineated in her book. 
And no doubt it brought many souls into the Catholic 
Church. 

The writer of this book was evidently on her way 
into the Church ; yet her conversion did not take place 
until two years afterwards. The book had appeared 
in 1844; in the October of the next year Newman was 
received into the Catholic Church. His conversion 
had disturbed many minds. It was the time of great 
converts — Newman, Faber, Hope, Manning, Wilber- 
force, the Duchess of Norfolk, the Duchess of Buc- 
cleuch, the Marchioness of Lothian, the Marchioness 
of Londonderry; from the universities, from society 
they came to follow the light of their conscience. No 
doubt the conversion of Newman helped to disturb the 
mind of Lady Fullerton also. The family knew 
whither she was tending, and her mother dreaded the 
step because Lord Granville was in failing health, and 
it was feared that if Georgiana became a Catholic it 
would be a great shock to him. Not that even her love 
for her father would have deterred Lady Fullerton, 
once she saw her duty. She would have followed the 
direction of God even though it meant a shock that 

[351] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

would kill her father. But the grace did not come 
until two months after his death. She finally saw the 
light, and was received into the Catholic Church on 
Passion Sunday, 1846. She was then not quite thirty- 
four years of age, and had been married nearly thir- 
teen years. 

It had been a hard trial for her to make up her 
mind. Her family had tried to dissuade her, espe- 
cially Lady Rivers, the sister she so loved. But there 
was nothing mean in their opposition. They merely 
could not understand. Once the step was taken, there 
were no reproaches ; and her relations with her family 
continued as intimate as ever, for they all loved her. 
But in her own heart she knew her gain. If anybody 
ever appreciated the gift of faith, it was she. One 
can imagine the joy of her husband when she whom he 
so loved was one in faith with him. Together they 
could now devote themselves to the education of their 
son. They were united more closely than ever, bonded 
together by religion. Their interests were now the 
same in everything. 

Fullerton was a man of living faith, of practical 
charity, and of great service to the Church. He was 
greatly instrumental in bringing about the establish- 
ment of the Oratory in London in 1859, and also 
helped much in the establishment of the English 
branch of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. 
His wife was heart and soul with him in all his pious 
projects, and even from the beginning went about the 
work of sanctifying her soul, going to confession twice 

[352] 



LADY GEORGIAN A FULLERTON 

a week, having a great devotion to that sacrament, for 
which she had longed even as a child outside the faith. 

Georgiana now saw that her talent at writing was to 
be used for the faith. After her first literary venture, 
and while still a Protestant, she had wanted to write 
the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. But her mother 
had opposed it quietly, thinking that Georgiana was 
becoming too Catholic. The year following her con- 
version, she brought out her first novel as a Catholic, 
Grantley Manor, which, though absolutely Catholic, 
was greatly admired by her Protestant readers. It 
made its special appeal, however, to the Catholics, who 
rejoiced in this new writer of theirs, striking the Cath- 
olic note in a literature which, as Newman said, had 
become Protestant. Even the French Queen wrote 
that she thought it one of the most charming books she 
had ever read. Lady Fullerton was an untiring writer. 
The next year she gave to the world another book, 
Ladybird, also animated by the Catholic faith. 

During those years of her first fervor there was lit- 
tle of interest outside her literary work and her de- 
votion to religion. She was happy in her husband, hap- 
py in her young son growing to manhood, and happier 
still in the blessings of the faith. The only incident 
worthy of particular note is the visit which she, with 
her husband and son, made to Rome in 185 1. She had 
been there eight years before, but the circumstances 
were entirely different now. She was a Catholic com- 
ing to the centre of the Catholic faith, and she en- 
joyed all that the city could offer to her deeply re- 

[353] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ligious soul. The Catacombs, the shrines, the relics, 
the numberless wonderful churches, lifted her soul to 
Heaven. She herself describes it somewhat in her 
Life of St. Francis of Rome, which she wrote later 
on. 

"To pass along the street, so often trod by holy feet 
in former and in latter days, and seek the church ap- 
pointed for that day's station ; to approach some time- 
worn basilica, or ancient sanctuary, without the city 
walls maybe, and, passing on the threshold, give one 
look at the glorious works of Almighty God in the 
natural world, — at the wide Campagna, that land-sea, 
so beautiful in its broad expanse and its desolate 
grandeur, at the purple hills and their golden lights 
and their deep-blue shadows, and the arched sky tell- 
ing so vividly the glory of its Maker ; and then slowly 
lifting the heavy curtain that stands between that vi- 
sion of earthly beauty and the shrine where countless 
generations have come to worship; to tread under foot 
the green boughs, the sweet-smelling leaves, the scat- 
tered flowers, that morning strewn upon the uneven, 
time-trodden, time-honored pavement; bowing in ad- 
miration before the Lord in His tabernacle, to thank 
Him for the wonders that He has worked, in His 
saints, for the beauty of the world of grace, of which 
that of the visible world is but the type and the 
shadow ; and then move from one shrine to the other, 
wherever the lights upon the altars point the way, and 
invoke the assistance, the prayers of the saints whose 
relics are there displayed ; — all this is one of those rare 

[354] 



LADY GEORGIAN A FULLERTON 

enjoyments which at once feed the soul and awake the 
imagination, and which the devout Christian can find 
in no place but Rome." 

The visit strengthened her soul in its faith. And the 
time was coming when she would need all that faith. 

Her son Granville, her only child, was now twenty 
years of age, a bright, intelligent youth and a favorite 
with everybody. He had been delicate in his young 
years, but apparently now had overcome all weakness, 
so much so that he entered the army and was waiting 
for his commission in the Grenadier Guards. As his 
grandmother, Lady Granville, wrote to Lady Fuller- 
ton about him : "He is full of gaiety, without being 
boisterous; his manner to me and to all is charming; 
every one loves him and speaks of his goodness and 
amiability." When he was so popular with all, no 
wonder his father and mother doted on him. 

It was in 1855 that all their hopes were shattered. 
He had wanted to go to the Crimea, but the doctor had 
forbidden it, and the parents were delighted that they 
were to keep him. One day he went to pay a visit to 
his aunt, Lady Rivers. He was the life of the big 
country house, full of his cousins and friends of his 
own age. One evening he walked with one of his 
cousins, and was telling her of the plans he was mak- 
ing, of what his father was to do for him when he 
came of age, and how soon that would be, as he was 
so near twenty-one. The next day he died suddenly. 
Lady Rivers telegraphed to Cardinal (then Doctor) 
Manning, who lived close to the home of Lady Fuller- 

[355] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ton. It was he who broke the news to the Fullertons. 
It broke their hearts. The mother never spoke her 
son's name again. No one ever uttered his name in 
her presence. It was a grief that remained with her 
all her life. His picture, even, was covered with a 
veil; and when she was on her death-bed, an old 
woman, she said, looking toward it, "I wish I had 
the courage to draw it aside and look at him." It 
was a grief buried deep in her heart, but she never 
rebelled against God. "Thy will be done," was her 
prayer and the prayer of her husband. Their resigna- 
tion was perfect. Her son's death closed entirely the 
heart of Lady Fullerton to the things of earth, and 
drew her closer to Heaven. 

When Father Faber, who had been her great con- 
solation in those trying days, published his Foot of 
the Cross in 1857, he dedicated it to her, — "To the 
Lady Georgiana Fullerton this volume is inscribed in 
affectionate remembrance of a season of darkness 
which God consecrated for Himself by a more than 
common sorrow." In her son's babyhood she had 
given him the pet-name of "Dieu-donne," or "God- 
given." 

"Even to-day, in the midst of my grief," she wrote 
shortly after his death, "I call thee still my child Dieu- 
donne; God has taken back His treasure." 

On the night before he had left her for the last time 
she had gone with him to visit Father Faber at the 
Oratory. A year afterwards she wrote to the priest a 
letter which shows how she had sanctified her grief. 

[356] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

"Dear Father Faber: 

"My husband is deeply touched by your most kind 
and affectionate letter, and, from my heart, I thank 
you for it. The eve of St. Philip's day! the eve of 
the day when I saw my boy for the last time! It 
seems as if I had no leisure for grief now, and those 
with whom I labour are strangers for the most part 
to my former existence, in which joy and anguish are 
so strangely blent. I never hear his name, never speak 
of him now. I sometimes scarcely feel as if I were the 
same person I used to be, so absorbed has my life been 
by a wholly new direction, so dedicated to a special 
line of work and thought. But it is lying there in 
my heart, only buried deeper, the love, the grief, the 
purpose, formed in those days of sorrow, when I 
leant upon you, my dear, dear Father Faber. I never 
can forget what you did for me then. How wonder- 
fully I see now God's fatherly hand in the removal of 
my child! What fearful dangers stood in his way, 
had he been left on earth ! What fearful suffering it 
would have been to see him falter, if not fall, like 
others, in these days of trial! God has been very 
good to me. Pray for me, that I may not always be 
the 'whited sepulchre' which I feel myself to be, that I 
may not be unworthy of the teachings and example I 
am constantly receiving. Give me your blessing, and 
believe me ever gratefully and affectionately yours, 

"GEORGIANA FULLERTON." 
[357 3 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

She sought to conquer her grief, to console and com- 
fort her husband, who had been as stricken as her- 
self, and now more than ever she devoted herself to 
the poor. Hers was not the character to indulge in 
selfish grief. Her martyrdom was known only to 
God. 

How greatly she strove towards sanctity is evi- 
dent in the spiritual diary she kept from time to time. 
Two years after the death of her son, we find her 
and her husband in Rome, where they both joined the 
Third Order of St. Francis. She wrote in her diary 
as follows: 

Rome, May 4, 1857. 

"Behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now is 
the day of salvation. To-morrow morning, the anni- 
versary of my beloved child's last Communion, I am 
to be admitted into the Third Order of St. Francis, 
and I firmly purpose and intend, by God's grace, that 
it be the beginning of a new life, strictly dedicated to 
God and His service. In the first place, I renew the 
vow I made, with Father Faber's consent, nineteen 
months ago. Secondly, I make a firm resolution to 
practise poverty in every way in my power in every- 
thing, using such things as are poorest and oldest and 
cheapest, within the limits of discretion and what is 
due others; to consider my money as not belonging 
to myself, but to God and the poor; only to take for 
myself what is strictly necessary for dress and those 
things I have to pay for. Not to spend anything that 
is not directly or indirectly for the glory of God, lit- 

[358] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

tie presents of affection and kindness being", as I con- 
sider, included in the latter class. If I feel any doubt 
on any question of that kind, to refer it to my con- 
fessor. To try not to allow in myself anything that 
I am not obliged to that would be unbecoming in a 
religious: over-excitement in conversation, complaint 
at want of comforts, negligent and self-indulgent pos- 
tures. To try, as much as possible in my position and 
without neglecting any duty, to lead a religious life. 
To do nothing from fancy or impulse, remembering 
that 'patience is to seculars what the rule is to re- 
ligious.' I will try, as the rule directs, to keep to two 
meals a day. If I take anything else, to let it be only 
a bit of dry bread. This I may be obliged to change 
at times, but at present I will at all events keep to it. 
To make a careful and attentive study of my rule, 
observing every point of it, keeping to the spirit, if I 
cannot to the letter, examining myself upon it, and not- 
ing down my transgressions. I will make my medita- 
tion to-morrow on the Five Wounds of Our Lord, 
with ardent prayers to St. Francis to obtain for me 
the five virtues of humility, obedience, mortification, 
love of poverty and patience." 

In this simple baring of her soul and its desires for 
the things of God, we get a glimpse of the woman's 
true greatness. And all the while she was using her 
pen, producing those novels which in her time did so 
much in furthering the cause of the Catholic Church. 
She had a literary talent of a high order, and she 
might have attained a higher rank in English literature 

[359] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

had she been content with merely a secular literary 
career. But that was so unworthy of her that she 
did not even give it a thought. Her writing was for 
God. She even turned her talent to writing in French, 
for she wrote that language as well and as easily as 
her mother-tongue. So we have from her pen such 
books as Too Strange to Be True, A Stormy Life, and 
Mrs. Gerald's Niece, a. book which the Marquis of 
Ripon, who was cabinet minister in Gladstone's ad- 
ministration, said had finally convinced him of the 
truth of the Catholic faith. She also wrote A Will 
and a Way and Rose Le Blanc and La Comtesse de 
Bonneval in French, which she then translated into 
English. She also translated many other works. Her 
last novel was Constance Sherwood, a. story of the 
persecutions under Elizabeth, and one of the most ac- 
curate historical novels in the language. Besides her 
novels, she wrote the Life of St. Francis of Rome, to 
which she added sketches of Blessed Lucy of Narni, 
Blessed Dominica of Paradiso, and Anne de Mont- 
morency ; also the Life of Luisa de Carvajal, the Life 
of Father Henry Young, and other books which there 
is no need of mentioning. It is a great list, and is 
well worth reading even to-day. 

One sees from that long list what a busy woman 
Lady Fullerton was. And yet her writing did not 
occupy all her time. She always found time for works 
of charity, and, above all, time to give to the wor- 
ship of God in her prayer and meditation. She was 
in everything thoroughly Catholic, wondering at the 

[360] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

goodness of God in giving her the Catholic faith. 
When Lady Herbert of Lea came into the Church, 
Lady Fullerton wrote to her : "I have now been just 
nineteen years a Catholic, and never ceased to wonder 
with an adoring heart at the infinite mercy of God in 
bestowing on one so unworthy as myself that blessed 
gift of faith not vouchsafed to so many who would 
make a better use of it." 

Her humility is seen in that statement. She wished 
ever to keep in the background. Even after she had 
begun her works of charity she would retire and let 
some one else take the glory of them. All she cared 
about was to do the work. And so we find her going 
out among the poor, hringing them not only gifts of 
money, but even sweeping their rooms, making the 
beds, happy to do the most menial tasks for the glory 
of God. She would go on foot to save a few cents' 
cab- fare, in order that she might have more for her 
poor. Every penny she got hold of went to the poor, 
and when she had none of her own she would go out 
begging from her friends so that she might not have 
to turn anybody away. She was not a rich woman, 
and even though her husband was wealthy, she did not 
often beg from him, for she knew that he had his own 
charities to care for, and, moreover, she wished to live 
the life of a poor woman. 

Her whole life may be summed up in the statement 
that she wished to serve others. After her son died, 
she retired almost absolutely from the world. Society 
had no charm for her when her boy was gone. It had 

[361] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

less charm for her now, after all the years spent in 
religious exercises, in visits to the poor, in writing 
her many books. But her spiritual director suggested 
to her that it was her duty to go out into society in 
order to work for the faith among the people of her 
own social position. She had no inclination for re- 
newing social life, yet she did it, and tried to take 
an interest in passing things, in current literature, in 
visits, all for the purpose of being able to do some- 
thing to bring others nearer the Church. She never 
denied herself to others. Even in the midst of her 
writing, if some one came to see her, even if a beggar 
called, she was always willing to put aside what she 
was doing in order to attend to what she considered 
a greater charity. 

One little incident shows her perpetual desire to 
serve others. She was an excellent musician and had 
studied under Liszt, becoming so talented that her 
brothers would keep her playing the piano for hours 
at a time. When her son died, she closed the piano. 
But years afterwards she took up her music again, 
solely that she might give pleasure to others. 

It is not strange that a woman with such consid- 
eration for others even in these simple things should 
be active in what may be called great works of char- 
ity — institutional charities, as distinguished from her 
personal visits and gifts to the poor. Lady Fullerton 
really loved the poor, and reverenced them. Her 
mother had been very charitable and was always 
working for the poor. So no one ever heard Lady 

[362] 



LADY GEORGIAN A FULLERTON 

Fullerton finding fault with them and blaming them 
for their condition; rather did she consider the great 
temptations that assailed them. But a charity that ap- 
pealed to her more than all others was the care of the 
orphans. She was the life of the charity that took 
the little ones and prevented them being brought up 
Protestants. There was one little orphan asylum hum- 
bly founded by two poor working girls who had taken 
some orphan children into a couple of rooms. The 
girls worked for the support of these orphans ; some- 
times they did not have a cent. Yet God came to their 
help, and among the friends He sent them was Lady 
Fullerton, who not only gave of her money, but also 
gave her personal help and even wrote a booklet giv- 
ing an account of this humble charity. 

A sample of her charity is given in a letter written 
by a gentleman to Mr. Fullerton after the death of 
Lady Georgiana. It came from Mentone, where she 
used to spend the winter. 

"Every year," he wrote, "the venerated Lady Geor- 
giana passed about three months in this town, and 
during that time her every thought and every occu- 
pation turned upon works of charity. There were 
very few poor in those days who were not benefited 
by her. She set an example of true humility, and none 
who saw her, always plainly dressed, carrying relief 
and comforts to the poor and sick in the dark and 
narrow alleys of the town, would have believed that 
one so simple and unassuming belonged to one of the 
first families of the English nobility." 

[363] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

But all these charities may be called side issues with 
her; for she desired to establish some charity that 
would live after her. And it was due principally to 
her efforts that the Community of the Poor Servants 
of the Mother of God was established. She worked 
for this in season and out, and even parted with her 
most cherished jewels to keep the work going. If she 
had done nothing else, her name would be worthy of 
remembrance. Yet she did not seek to be honored as 
the founder; she was content to be known as the in- 
spirer of it. The woman who was associated in this 
work with her was Mother Mary Magdalen Taylor, 
the daughter of an Anglican minister, who had been 
a nurse in the Crimean war under Florence Nightin- 
gale. She had been so edified by the Catholic soldiers 
in the practice of their faith, that when she returned 
to England she entered the Catholic Church. Her in- 
timacy with Lady Fullerton in charitable work in 
London finally led to the establishment of the com- 
munity, of which she became the Superior-General. 
There are many houses now of that community in 
England and Ireland, every one of them a jewel in 
the crown of Lady Fullerton. 

It would take a large book to describe all the chari- 
ties of this great woman. Every moment of the day 
she was thinking of somebody else. Even as early 
as 1850 she had opened a school for poor Catholic 
children, the beginning of many such schools. When 
she came to settle in London she went to the priests 
and learned from them the needs of the poor in the 

[364] 



LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON 

neighborhood and began at once to visit them. If 
she could not go herself to them, she would send some 
one to take her place. And this led to her work, with 
other ladies, in bringing to London from Paris the 
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. She was always par- 
ticularly fond of children. A friend of hers used to 
say, "Lady Georgiana goes only to the three S's — the 
sick, the sorrowful, the sinful." Even on her death- 
bed her thoughts were of the poor that needed help. 

Her last illness was a long one. From May to 
January she lay in bed, and then finally the summons 
came, and she passed away without a sigh on the nine- 
teenth of January, 1885. 

The sorrow at the death of Lady Fullerton was 
universal. She had lived a long life, her name was 
a household word through her books and her charities. 
Everybody loved her, and it was felt by all that she 
never could be replaced. In the many letters that 
came to the faithful and loving husband after her 
death there breathes nothing but love and sorrow that 
the world had lost one of its saints. 

And surely, as we read the journal she kept in 
her retreats, as we read her diary, even if we had no 
knowledge of her outward life of devotion to the serv- 
ice of the Church and the poor, we come to the con- 
clusion that Lady Fullerton was a saintly woman. Her 
one great prayer to God was: "Make me a saint." 
To this end her life was ordered. Her prayers and 
meditations, her spiritual readings, her visits to the 
Blessed Sacrament — all seem more the works of a 

[365] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

nun in her convent than of a woman of the world. 
It was a life of penance as well as of prayer. She 
used the discipline on herself, denied her appetite, 
sought occasions to mortify herself. She lived for 
God alone. Hers was a life of personal sacrifice. 
There was no one to whom the world held out more. 
She was a woman of great talent, of fine family, to 
whom a high position in society was assured. Yet she 
put it all aside to lead, as far as she could, the life 
hidden with Christ in God. 

God demanded a great deal of her. He took away 
her first-born son, whom she loved devotedly, yet she 
submitted to His will, and only drew nearer to the 
hand that had struck her. A devoted wife of fifty 
years, a loving mother, who saw God's mercy even 
in the death of her son, what an example of love and 
faith is she to the wives and mothers of all time! 



[366] 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 
(1814-1882) 

AS we read the story of the great women who 
have merited a place of honor in the history 
of the Church, we discover one attribute that is com- 
mon to them all — charity. No matter what the posi- 
tion they occupied in the world, whether of high or 
low degree, the epitaph of every one of them could 
be this: "She was kind to the poor." They loved 
God with all their hearts; hence, too, they loved their 
neighbor. "Religion clean and undented before God 
and the Father," says St. James (Epistle i, 27), "is 
this : to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribu- 
lation, and to keep one's self unspotted from this 
world." 

Practical charity has ever been a characteristic of 
our women. They do not talk much about social 
service, and uplift, and philanthropy. With them 
charity is a part of "religion clean and undefiled." 
When there is work to be done, they say nothing, but 
at once put their hand to it. It is not a condescension 
on their part. They are the honored ones, not the 
poor who furnish them with this means of sanctifi- 

[367} 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

cation. Nothing is menial if it be for the glory of 
God. 

In an old chronicle of the eleventh century we read 
that when a certain church was building, Bertha, the 
mother of St. Eberhard, who had been archbishop 
of Salzburg, carried stones on her shoulders, walking 
barefoot half a mile. And again, in those same ages 
of faith, we read that once, when an abbey in Eng- 
land was burned, everybody helped in the reconstruc- 
tion. "Nor must we forget," says the monk who tells 
the story, "among so many benefactors, Juliana, a 
poor old woman of holy memory at Weston, who out 
of her poverty gave us all her living, namely, some 
yarn and spinning thread to make vestments for the 
brethren of our monastery/' 

Poor old Juliana ! How little she thought that with 
her gift of thread and yarn she was purchasing immor- 
tality! Somehow, God never forgets the widow's 
mite. 

But this sacrifice of self was not alone a virtue of 
the middle ages. It is of all ages, as long as we have 
the poor with us ; and that is always. There are many 
manifestations of it. Mrs. Craven interested her 
friends in private theatricals to raise money for the 
poor. Mrs. Taigi, herself poor, went out begging 
for those more destitute than herself. Lady Fuller- 
ton wrote her books so that she might have more to 
bestow upon the needy. She would even walk long 
distances to save the cab- fare for them. Orphans par- 
ticularly appealed to her. One asylum in which she 

[368] 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 

was especially interested was a very humble one found- 
ed by two poor working girls. They had nothing 
themselves, and worked hard for a living. But they 
saw the needy orphans about them, and, having a 
couple of rooms, they took as many children as they 
could, and supported them out of what was scarcely 
enough to maintain themselves. What a lesson in 
charity from these two poor working girls! What 
humble instruments God sometimes uses to do His 
work ! One realizes, then, that it is not the human 
effort, but the grace of God, which accomplishes the 
task. God gives the increase ! 

In this respect there is nothing more striking than 
the story of Margaret Haughery of New Orleans, — 
"Our Margaret," as a grateful community loved to 
call her. It is a simple story, yet a thrilling one, an 
inspiration for every woman, rich or poor, to the life 
of charity which God has made the condition of eter- 
nal happiness. 

Margaret's maiden name was Gaffney, and she was 
born in the County Cavan, Ireland, in 1814. Her par- 
ents, Charles and Margaret (O'Rourke) Gaffney, like 
so many of the Irish people, determined to seek their 
fortune in the New World. They were young and 
strong and ambitious, and so they bade farewell to 
their native land, and with little Margaret, their only 
child, set sail for America. But the voyage that looked 
so promising ended disastrously. Both of the immi- 
grants were stricken with the terrible yellow fever, 
then of frequent occurrence, and died soon after in 

[369] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Baltimore in 1822, leaving behind the little orphaned 
Margaret, who in the years to come was to be known 
as the "Mother of Orphans." 

But she was far from giving promise then of ever 
being a notable character. A homeless child of little 
more than seven years, her outlook on life was not 
a rosy one. It was a sad condition, one she never for- 
got, a memory that was the inspiration of her life. 

On the same boat that had brought the Gaffneys to 
America there was a Welsh couple with whom they 
became very friendly. When the stricken parents 
knew that their end was near, they begged their new 
friends to be good to the little girl, soon to be left 
alone in the world. The kind-hearted couple, though 
different in religion — they were Baptists — promised to 
take the orphan, and thus little Margaret found a home 
with truly charitable people. The character of this 
good man and woman may be judged from the fact 
that they were faithful to their trust, and brought up 
Margaret in the Catholic faith. They did the best 
they could for her, and she was ever faithful to their 
memory; but they were poor and struggling them- 
selves, and while they fed and clothed her and shel- 
tered her from public charity, they were unable to give 
her an education. Very early in life she was thrown 
on her own resources, and never learned even to read 
or write, a fact that makes her great success in busi- 
ness all the more remarkable. 

It was in 1835 that she married Charles Haughery. 
It wa§ not a brilliant match. He was a poor, hard- 

[370] 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 

working man. But it must have seemed to the orphan 
girl like the ending of all her troubles. In fact, how- 
ever, they had only begun. The young husband began 
to fail in health, and, thinking that a warmer climate 
would benefit him, they left Baltimore and went to 
New Orleans. But even with the change his health 
did not improve. As a last resort he was advised to 
take an ocean voyage, and so, leaving Margaret and 
her young baby, he set sail for Ireland. She never 
saw him again. He died in the Old Country, and she 
was left again to struggle alone in the world. An- 
other sorrow soon came in the death of her baby ; and 
now, a widow and childless, scarcely over twenty, she 
faced life again with only the memory of a few 
months' happiness. 

But she was not the kind to sit and moan over her 
sorrows. There was always a masculine energy in 
her character, together with the womanly gentleness. 
In one of the hotels of New Orleans she found em- 
ployment as a laundress. It goes without saying that 
her wages were small, scarcely enough to support her- 
self. Under these trying conditions what chance had 
she to do charity ? Rather was she deserving of char- 
ity herself, a poor young widow, washing and iron- 
ing for a bare livelihood. Yet in the midst of her 
poverty she found pity for others. She thought of 
the days when she herself was a helpless orphan de- 
pendent on charity. She thought, perhaps, of the baby 
hands that had twined about her own heart. God 
had taken her baby, but there were numberless other 

[37i] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

babies in the world crying for a mother's love. She 
had the heart of a mother, and the orphans won it 
to their cause. 

In those days, when the yellow fever was so preva- 
lent, the city had more than its share of orphans. 
Epidemic followed epidemic, often taking both father 
and mother and throwing the children on the mercy 
of the world. The good Sisters of Charity, eager as 
they were to care for every homeless child, were hard 
pushed for accommodations and for the means to feed 
and clothe their charges. To Margaret Haughery, 
over her wash-tub and her ironing-board, there came 
from time to time the sad news that the Sisters of the 
orphan asylum were in hard straits. It was more than 
her big Irish heart could stand. If she could help, 
not one child should be turned away. If the asylum 
were too small, then a larger one should be built. And 
so, poor laboring woman that she was, she came to 
the Sisters and said to them, "I will do what I can 
to help you." 

What could she do, indeed? It almost seemed ri- 
diculous. But the good Sisters gladly accepted her 
proffered help. They little knew what wonderful 
things she was going to accomplish. In her spare 
hours, after her hard work in the hotel, she helped in 
the work of the orphan asylum. But that was not 
enough. To her sorrow, she saw that many of the 
children did not have enough to eat. But she did not 
waste any time in useless lamentation., She was too 
practical for that. She began to work for them, that 

[372] 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 

they might have enough. Day after day she made the 
round of the hotels, and collected the discarded scraps 
of food. She brought them home and made them into 
palatable dishes for the orphans. Many a time, if it 
had not been for this, they would have gone to bed 
hungry. Besides that, she went out on the street to 
beg for them, and would carry the food and clothing 
she obtained in a wheelbarrow to the asylum. 

But Margaret was not content with the small re- 
turns of begging. She had a business instinct and she 
turned it to account. Out of the few dollars which 
she had saved from her meagre wages she bought two 
cows and established a dairy on a small scale. She 
delivered the milk herself. No matter what the 
weather, she could be seen driving her wagon, dressed 
in her calico dress, a little shawl on her shoulders, and 
on her head the sunbonnet that was always characteris- 
tic of her. It was a humble beginning, but the prayers 
of the orphans brought a blessing upon the work. 

By her interest in the asylum Margaret had won 
the love and admiration of the Superior of the Sisters 
of Charity, Sister Francis Regis Barret, who soon saw 
in the young widow an angel of mercy. Together they 
planned for a larger asylum. It was a big undertak- 
ing, but nothing is too big for those who have con- 
fidence in God. The larger asylum was built, and in 
ten years, thanks chiefly to Margaret and her dairy 
business, always increasing, it was freed from debt. 

Margaret's business still increased. Money was 
made, and this money went to the orphans. The dairy 

[373] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

was enlarged, and as the business increased, Mar- 
garet's charity also increased. Not content with the 
building of the orphan asylum, an infant asylum, 
which she called her "baby house," was erected, and 
then a training asylum for larger girls. And in all 
this work Margaret Haughery was the prime mover, 
the chief supporter. 

Yet, in spite of all these charities, the thrifty widow 
found that from the proceeds of her dairy she had 
money to invest. Her widow's cruse seemed never to 
run dry, no matter how lavish she was with its con- 
tents. One of her creditors, to whom she had loaned 
money, failed. He was a baker, and Margaret was 
obliged to accept his bakery business in payment of 
the debt. It did not look promising, but nevertheless 
she determined to continue the business. She gave up 
the dairy and devoted all her energy to the bakery.; 
It was as big a success as the dairy had been. She 
was soon a familiar figure driving the baker's cart. 

Margaret's new business was a godsend to the asy- 
lums. She supplied them at a trifle, and, besides that, 
gave away countless loaves of bread to the poor all 
over the city. Not an efficient way to do business, ap- 
parently; yet somehow the bakery prospered marvel- 
ously. The more she gave away, the more she had. 
In a true sense, she cast her bread upon the waters and 
it returned to her. Soon she was obliged to increase 
her output. The bakery was enlarged to a factory run 
by steam, and was noted as the first steam-bakery in 
New Orleans. 

[374] 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 

Her bakery and herself became inseparable. There, 
in the doorway, she would sit and hold her court. She 
was filled with a sense of Irish humor and she loved 
to talk. No one passed her door without a word with 
her. From the bootblack to the banker, all found it 
worth while to talk with "Margaret," to consult her 
about their business, and to benefit from the wise ad- 
vice she knew so well how to give. To all of them she 
was "Margaret." Some of them never knew what 
her other name was. She was just "Margaret," and 
they called her that with love and admiration. "Mar- 
garet, the Orphans' Friend" — that was the title which 
drew to her the affection of a grateful city. All saw 
in her a charity which had no bounds. Black or white, 
Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic, all were her 
children if they needed help. "They are all orphans 
alike," she would say. She remembered that when she 
herself was a needy orphan it was a Protestant fam- 
ily that had kept her from public chanty. 

And not only did she help the orphan. Wherever 
there was need, there was she. Besides her aid in the 
building of the asylums for the orphan children, she 
gave her means and her wisdom also to the founding 
of a home for the aged and infirm. And more than 
that, St. Teresa's Church was virtually built by her 
and Sister Francis Regis. Indeed, there was no good 
work that appealed to her in vain. 

And with her charity there went a genuine patriot- 
ism. During the dread days of the Civil War she fed 
many a hungry soldier. Confederate prisoners espe- 

[375] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

cially were objects of her solicitude. She gave them 
her constant care. All the children that were left or- 
phans by the death of their parents during those ter- 
rible days found in her a loving protector. Once she 
went so far as to brave General Butler, and carried a 
cargo of flour across the lines so that her orphans 
might not be hungry. 

It was the same spirit which she had shown during 
the yellow fever epidemic of the fifties, a scourge she 
had reason to remember, since, long before, it had 
deprived her of father and mother. She did not fear 
it, however. She went from house to house, bringing 
comfort to the sick. Many a dying mother she con- 
soled by promising that she would care for the chil- 
dren soon to be motherless. She was everywhere 
when she was needed. During those days the periodi- 
cal floods of the Mississippi brought desolation. After 
the destruction came want. And Margaret, fearless, 
with that masculine energy which went hand in hand 
with gentleness, visited the submerged districts in a 
boat loaded with bread to save the people from star- 
vation. 

So passed this simple yet heroic life. It had only 
one inspiration — to do good to others. But, simple 
as it was, — the life of a woman who could not read 
or write; who, when signing her will, could only use 
her mark, — it was such a life as to bring her universal 
love and fame. 

When she died, in 1882, the event was regarded as 
a public calamity. All the papers in the city were 

[376] 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 

bordered with black in mourning for her. It seemed 
as if the whole city turned out to attend her funeral. 
The Archbishop, the Governor, the Mayor, the rich 
and the poor, all came to do honor to this noble, sim- 
ple soul. It was a time of universal sorrow. No 
one could get used to the thought of her death. She 
was a very part of the city. It seemed strange that 
its life could go on without Margaret sitting there in 
her doorway. 

The orphans especially had reason to mourn their 
friend. At her funeral there were hundreds of these 
little ones, coming from the eleven different asylums 
which had shared in her bounty. But they were not 
alone. Merchants, lawyers, judges, public officials, all 
considered it an honor to pay this last tribute to the 
unlettered woman who had been such an inspiration 
to their city and to the world. 

She was buried in the same grave with Sister Fran- 
cis Regis Barret, the Sister of Charity who had died 
in 1862, and who in the early days had been her co- 
worker for the poor. 

When Margaret Haughery's will was read — the will 
which she had signed with her mark — it was found 
that all her money had been left to the poor. The 
asylums, no matter to what creed they belonged, were 
remembered; for, as she had said, "They are all or- 
phans alike." 

The admiration of the city of New Orleans was not 
a momentary one. So great was its esteem for Mar- 
garet, that the whole community resolved she should 

[377] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

not be forgotten, and it was decided to erect a statue 
to her memory. The strange thing about it was that 
no subscription paper was passed. No one had to 
be asked. The money flowed in so fast that soon the 
committee had to give notice that there was more 
than sufficient for the purpose. 

In a little more than two years after her death the 
statue was unveiled. It was a memorable occasion. 
There were congregated all the dignitaries of the city, 
and, more than all, the orphans whom she loved so 
well. One of the orphans pulled the cord that un- 
veiled the statue. When the little ones beheld the 
friend they had known so well sitting there,— the 
familiar short, stout, good- faced woman, always so 
gentle and kind, sitting as she was accustomed to 
sit in the doorway of her bakery, in her simple calico 
dress and shawl, her arm about an orphan girl, — they 
shouted with joy, a cry that was taken up by the 
crowd that filled the streets. It was their "Margaret" 
back with them once more ! That was the only name 
on the monument — just "Margaret" — but it told a 
story eloquent with sacrifice and love. 

The speaker at the dedication thus summed up her 
work. "To those who look with concern upon the 
moral situation of the hour," said he in part, "and 
fear that human action finds its sole motive to-day in 
selfishness and greed, who imagine that the world no 
longer yields homage save to fortune and to power, 
this scene affords comfort and cheer. When we see 
the people of this great city meet, without distinction 

[37$] 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 

of age, rank, or creed, with one heart to pay their 
tribute of love and respect to the humble woman who 
passed her quiet life among us under the simple name 
of 'Margaret,' we come fully to know, to feel, and 
to appreciate the matchless power of a well-spent life. 
The substance of her life was charity; the spirit of 
it, truth; the strength of it, religion; the end, peace; — 
then fame and immortality." 

The story of Margaret Haughery is one of the 
sweetest ever told. Her life is a lesson of love in 
charity which this age needs to learn. While philan- 
thropists and social workers vainly talk about prob- 
lems, she solved them ; for she met those problems with 
the wisdom that came from the love of her big Irish 
heart. In her simple life we read again the lesson 
that there is but one way to become great in the King- 
dom of God. And because she found that way, Mar- 
garet Haughery, the "Mother* of the Orphans," is en- 
titled to a high place among the great wives and 
mothers who have brought glory to the Catholic 
Church. 



[379] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 
(1808-1891) 

OF the numerous biographies by which the pri- 
vate records of society illustrate the century," 
says one of the biographers of Mrs. Craven, "few 
so well prove that it is possible to live in the world 
and yet be not of it." 

One feels the truth of that remark in the story of 
the lives of some of our great Catholic literary 
women. Lady Fullerton, with her well-established 
position in the innermost circles of London society, 
with all her varied activities, with her interest in peo- 
ple and the affairs of the different countries in which 
she lived, was at heart a Sister of Charity. It was the 
same with Madame Swetchine. "Mother, sister, 
friend, she was all to me," says Mrs. Craven of her 
whose salon was ever open, who was a guide of such 
men as Lacordaire in a critical time in the history 
of Catholic France, yet who, amid all her work, was 
a cloistered spirit. So with Vittoria Colonna, who 
took an interest in all the big things of her day, who 
was one of the leading characters in the Renaissance, 
yet used all these things to sanctify her soul. To all 

[380] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

of these good and great women could be applied these 
words : "The kingdom of God is within you." 

But to none are they more applicable than to the 
woman to whom Catholic society and Catholic litera- 
ture, and in truth all true womanhood, owe so much — 
Mrs. Augustus Craven. Madame Swetchine, Lady 
Fullerton, Lady Herbert of Lea, and Mrs. Craven 
were contemporaries, and, more than that, there was 
a personal bond between them. They all had some 
kind of association with one another, so much so that 
in thinking of one, one thinks of all the others. Yet 
it is not the mere association of friendship that links 
their names together; it is the bond of the true faith, 
that faith for which all of them worked and for which 
they made so many sacrifices. 

Of the four, Mrs. Craven was the only one that 
was born to the faith. She was also born to the best 
society of the world. She was welcomed by the finest 
people everywhere, in England, in France, in Italy. 
She had been referred to by her friends as a perfectly 
accomplished woman of the world, a finished actress 
in drawing-room comedy, a woman of shrewd polit- 
ical instincts, a singularly well read and cosmopolitan 
lady, and, as one man of the world remarked, the 
cleverest woman he ever met. Yet, more than all that, 
she was known as a woman of great faith, a woman to 
whom the only thing worth striving for was the glory 
of God. 

She was born in London in 1808, the child of 
French parents who had emigrated from France at 

[381] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

the time of the Revolution and who during their exile 
had more than their share of poverty and sacrifice. 
Her father was the Comte Auguste Marie de la Fer- 
ronnays, who looked back to a noble line of ancestors, 
and her mother, too, who was perhaps more remark- 
able in character than any of her wonderful children, 
was of an historic family and more than noble blood, 
a perfect wife and mother, who had been taught in the 
school of sacrifice, and hence knew how to inculcate 
religion and sacrifice in the hearts of her many chil- 
dren. Eleven children were born to the de la Fer- 
ronnays, four of whom died in infancy. In more 
senses than one the Countess may be considered a great 
mother. 

After the long period of exile, brighter prospects 
came with the Restoration. The Count, who had al- 
ways been a loyal friend of the Due de Bern, returned 
with him to France as his aide-de-camp, and his wife 
was given a position of honor at the court. All looked 
bright until the Count resented an insult at the hands 
of his friend the Duke, and immediately, being an 
independent soul, left the Tuileries, never to return. 
He had no money, no prospects, but he kept his honor. 
The Duke made amends later on by having his old 
friend appointed ambassador to St. Petersburg, a po- 
sition he held for eight years. The subject of our 
memoir, then Pauline de la Ferronnays, was seventeen 
years old at the time, a very attractive girl, who be- 
came at once popular at the Russian * court. The 
family returned to Paris in 1827, when the Count was 

[382] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

made Minister of Foreign Affairs by special request 
of Charles X. 

Pauline was nineteen when she took her place in 
the brilliant Paris society of that day. She was then 
a remarkably intelligent girl, whose head could not 
be turned, since she had known too well what hard- 
ship was and how uncertain is the favor of princes; a 
girl who had been reared in piety, and who found in 
her own family that love and devotion which have 
rarely been equaled in any family. Brilliant as so- 
ciety was then, with its fine writers, its Lamartines, 
its Chateaubriands, there was nothing that could re- 
place for her the delights of her family circle. She 
was beautiful, vivacious, able to converse on every 
topic, and with a voice that was called by her friends 
golden. She was recognized as one of the best con- 
versationalists of her day, and was, through her so- 
journ in different countries, a remarkably fine linguist. 

So happy was she at home that she was in no hurry 
to choose a husband. But when she did, it was not to 
make what the world would call a fine match, but to 
choose according to her heart. In 1828 her father had 
a slight stroke, and on that account resigned his min- 
istry. After traveling in northern Italy he was nomi- 
nated as ambassador at Rome, and thither his family 
accompanied him. To Pauline that was a great inci- 
dent in her life, perhaps the greatest, since it turned 
her heart in a special way to God. 

She describes her first visit to the Catacombs : "My 
soul overflowed with thoughts. I could not resist the 

[383] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

satisfaction of kissing those sacred stones before I re- 
turned to the church. When again in it, I knelt down 
and longed to remain there. I had felt emotions 
never before experienced by me. I owed them to the 
religion in which, happily, I was born. I felt the 
need of thanksgiving and of prayer to God that all 
my life should be an expression of my gratitude and 
of my love towards Him." 

Sacrifice was again demanded of the family. When 
the "Revolution of the Three Days" broke out, the 
Count resigned his position, although he knew not 
how he was going to provide for his family. But 
the family was so used to changes through politics 
that they were not cast down, and they found their 
true happiness in the society of one another. Besides 
that, the Count had many good friends who helped 
him in tiding over the bad places. So that when they 
settled down in Naples for a time, it was to the full 
enjoyment of life. Naples must ever have been a 
dear place to Pauline, for it was here that her be- 
loved brother Albert obtained his wife, the charm- 
ing Alexandrine, who later became a Catholic and 
gave such evidence of a holy life that in many respects 
she is even more remarkable than her famous sister- 
in-law, and it was here, too, that Pauline herself met 
her fate in the person of Augustus Craven. 

Augustus Craven was born in 1806, the son of Kep- 
pel Craven, whose mother, Lady Craven, later mar- 
ried to the Margrave of Anspach, had at her death 
left several estates to her son. Keppel Craven had 

[384] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

occupied the position of adviser to Queen Caroline, 
the wife of George IV. His son, Augustus, had 
served in the army, and after that was attached to 
the British legation at Naples. He was at once at- 
tracted to Pauline de la Ferronnays, and she to him. 
He was handsome and accomplished and his tastes 
were similar to hers. But he was a Protestant, and 
his father, who was bitterly anti-Catholic, did not 
approve of the marriage, and even threatened to dis- 
inherit Augustus if he married the Catholic girl. But 
Augustus was just as determined, and the father 
finally had to withdraw his opposition. They were 
married in the summer of 1834, and went to Rome, 
where Augustus was at once received into the Catholic 
Church. He had waited until after his marriage to 
make his submission, so that his motives in becoming 
a Catholic would not be misunderstood. He became 
a Catholic from sincere conviction. 

In 1836 the Cravens returned to England, and Paul- 
ine took her place in the most select English society.. 
For her own sake as well as for that of her husband,, 
she was interested in all social affairs, yet all the while 
her heart was with her own people. And no wonder. 
It was a family that would attract any one, even 
though not connected with it by ties of blood. It was 
Pauline's labor of love to make her family known in 
the Sister's Story, which she wrote later on. Religion 
dominated all, yet the family was one of the happiest 
and most talented. One could write a book about 
the brother Albert, who died from tuberculosis soon 

[385] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

after his marriage, so wrapt was his soul in spiritual 
things; about his charming wife, Alexandrine, who 
sacrificed great prospects to marry a poor young man. 
It was one of the happiest marriages, even while it was 
overshadowed by death from the very beginning. 
Alexandrine had been a Protestant prejudiced against 
the Church, but the prayers of her husband and his 
earnest devotion finally converted her before his 
death. Her short widowhood, for she died young, 
was filled with prayer and charity. Reading the Sis- 
ter's Story, one lingers over that model wife and hus- 
band ; and also over the other two sisters of Pauline — 
Eugenie, who died soon after her marriage, and the 
sweet Olga, who died in the bloom of her youth. 

Soon after the conversion of Alexandrine, Pauline 
was summoned to Paris, where Albert was dying. It 
was the first time she had come in contact with sor- 
row and death, and it had a chastening effect on her 
whole life. It brought her nearer to God. The death 
of Albert in his prime was a terrible loss, not only to 
the young wife, but to all the members of the family. 
It was an abiding sorrow, and was all the harder for 
Pauline to bear in that her husband was made attache 
at Lisbon, and she had to go with him away from her 
family when they most needed her consoling presence. 
The Cravens remained in Lisbon eighteen months, 
broken only by a short visit on her part to France 
for the marriage of her sister Eugenie to Comte 
Albert de Mun. 

But that marriage, too, was not of long happiness. 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

The beloved Eugenie died soon after the birth of her 
second child, who was famous later as the Comte Al- 
bert de Mun. Shortly before that affliction her father 
had died in Rome, in 1842, an event famous in Cath- 
olic annals inasmuch as it was the occasion of the 
conversion of the bigoted Jew, Alphonse Ratisbonne, 
who attributed his conversion to the prayers of a man 
he had never known. Five months later her sister 
Olga died. Albert, Eugenie and Olga all died of 
consumption. A few months more, and to the list 
of the dead were added Albert's widow, the saintly 
Alexandrine, and finally Madame de la Ferronnays, 
the great mother of a great family. One after an- 
other, Pauline saw her beloved ones pass away. She 
was heart-broken over all these losses, but she did not 
become moody. With her strong faith, the dead be- 
came even nearer to her than they were in life. They 
served but to draw her nearer to God, so sweet was 
the memory of the sanctity which had animated all 
of them. 

During the succeeding years in England she took 
an ardent interest in the Catholic revival, as she had 
also done in the Tractarian movement, which had 
brought so many great ones into the Church. She 
was always interested in politics, but the thing that 
interested her more than all else was the Church; 
for, like all her family, she was first and foremost a 
Catholic. And it was a practical interest she took. 
When the anti-Catholics in the House of Commons 
made an attack on the Church on the occasion of the 

[387] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

restoration of conventual life in England, she sat 
down and wrote a pamphlet in which she showed the 
utter injustice of these men. The pamphlet created a 
sensation among her friends, who had always re- 
garded her merely as a charming woman of the world, 
a devout but not a militant Catholic. 

On the death of his father, Augustus Craven came 
into the possession of quite a fortune. He was a man 
of great accomplishments, and it was thought advis- 
able for him to seek to be elected to Parliament. He 
gave up his diplomatic position, and he and his wife 
threw themselves into the work of electioneering. But 
it was a time of No-Popery agitation, and it did not 
help matters that Craven was a convert and his wife 
a militant Catholic ; and so he was badly defeated, and 
with the loss of so much money that it virtually crip- 
pled them for the rest of their lives. England became 
distasteful to them because of this manifestation of 
bigotry, and they went to live at Naples. On the way 
Mrs. Craven renewed her associations with the great 
Madame Swetchine, an intimacy that continued till 
the death of the woman who had done so much for 
the faith to which she had been converted. 

The Casa Craven at Naples soon became famous. 
Diplomatists of every nation, French friends, all were 
eager to belong to the charming society which gath- 
ered there. As Lady Drogheda once wrote: "I used 
to* hear of Mrs. Craven's acting and her great social 
talents, and her virtues and admirable qualities, until 
I grew to believe that there was no one like her. The 

[388] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

following year I learned to know and love her, and 
to look on her almost as a saint. It is all gone now, 
that brilliant and beloved society. There was no one 
like Pauline Craven; I think of her with tenderness no 
words can describe.' , 

In Naples at that time there was much charity to 
the poor, and Mrs. Craven naturally became interested 
in the good work. As has been said, she had a great 
talent for dramatics, and so had her husband. They 
turned their house into a theatre, had a stage erected, 
and with the help of some very fine amateur actors 
and actresses among their friends produced many 
plays and even operas. It was an event long remem- 
bered, a great social success; but, more than that, 
it accomplished what it was intended for — the helping 
of the poor. 

But the apparent frivolity of the theatricals did not 
take her mind from serious thoughts. Religion, after 
all, was the principal thing in her life, and it is no sur- 
prise to find her at this time enthusing over the spirit 
of faith in Rome, and to see her making spiritual re- 
treats, withdrawing for a time from the world to 
give herself wholly to thoughts about eternity. Hers 
was a great soul that could act in a comedy one mo- 
ment, and then retire to prayer. She loved the Imita- 
tion of Christ, and even ascetic and mystical theology. 
It was this spirit of faith that made her such a dear 
friend of Lady Fullerton, who was in so many ways 
like Mrs. Craven. Their ideals were the same, and it 

[389] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

was a delight for Mrs. Craven to visit the woman 
whose life she afterwards wrote so well. 

So we find her writing in her journal, one day, 
after reading a certain book : "I know not what will 
come of all this. Nothing, perhaps. Nothing! Great 
God, that is impossible! I shall have seen and heard 
and tasted all this, and make no further steps along 
the path Thy grace has shown me ? It may be so, for 
so it has been a thousand times with me. Ah ! that, in- 
deed, is to be feared, and grieves me, and there is 
naught else in the world that can be feared. I should 
never again feel sorrow or alarm if I could be, and 
know that I was, faithful. But such as I am, it is no 
wonder that I am trembling and troubled, and that I 
live uneasily between earth's delights, which no longer 
please me, or are not for me, and that heavenly peace 
which I have not known how to attain." 

It was the cry of a soul dissatisfied with itself. It 
was more so when she again came in contact with 
Madame Swetchine, and saw the deep religion of that 
great woman. But it stirred up Mrs. Craven to new 
and practical efforts after perfection. She is not con- 
tent with general aspirations, but comes down to par- 
ticulars, and makes the practical resolution to get up 
early, a thing that had always been hard for her to 
do. It is such little things as this that show her wish 
to correct her life. 

We find her at this time writing out her medita- 
tions, a practice she continued for years. 

It would be an endless task to follow her through 
[390] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

all her journal, quoting her references to the state of 
her soul. As in all spiritual journals, there must be 
a similarity, for it is the same old striving day after 
day. But the thing that does not appear in her journal 
is the good that she did to others. Her example, her 
spirit of faith, must have had a lasting effect upon 
the many friends she met. She was so proud of her 
faith, so grateful to God for the gift. 

And with that there went a great charity. With 
one of the priests she had planned the establishment 
in Naples of an infant asylum in each quarter of the 
city, to be managed by the Sisters of Charity, but 
the plan fell through, as the city was afraid of being 
considered too clerical if it accepted the services of 
the Sisters ; and so, at her own expense, she established 
a creche, which proved so efficient that after a time the 
city withdrew its objections and the other asylums 
were established. Not only did she give her money to 
charity, but she gave what was of greater value — 
her energy and her intelligence. When, in 1861, many 
of the monasteries were suppressed, she used her in- 
fluence to have some of them exempted. 

All the while she was working at her writing. She 
had been laboring at her famous Sister's Story for 
many years, ever since the death of those loved ones 
whose biography it is; and finally it was published 
in 1865. In a few months it went through nine edi- 
tions, creating a furore. As one critic wrote of it, ' 
"Never was there a more human book." It was the 
story of great Catholic hearts written by a great 

[391] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Catholic heart. No greater tribute could be paid to 
it than the fact that it was crowned by the French 
Academy. 

But it was not for literary fame she had toiled over 
it. Her introductory words show that. "O my God," 
she writes, "Thy Name is the first written as I begin 
this book. I desire that it may move men to love 
those remembered in it; but far more earnestly I de- 
sire that it may enkindle love for Thee." 

With great literary fame there also came a season 
of trouble. Her brother Charles died that year, her 
husband met with great financial losses, and they had 
to part with their home in Naples, where they had 
been so happy. And so they removed to Paris. 

She soon published her novel, Anne Severin, which 
went through many editions on account of the furore 
which the Sister's Story had created. And then ap- 
peared, after short intervals, Fleurange and Le Mot 
d'Enigme. We need not enter into a discussion of 
the literature produced by Mrs. Craven. Her works 
were artistic, and were always sure of their audience, 
in France, in England, in Italy, in America. She had 
the highest purpose in writing them. To see the 
amount of literary work she accomplished is to mar- 
vel, especially when one remembers her as the grande 
dame of the world, the lady of the salon, the woman 
who was interested in politics, charity, everything; 
and, above all, the woman who was at heart a recluse. 
It was no easy task for her, especially when one sees 
the financial difficulties she faced, and when one 

[392] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

knows that she had even to sell her diamonds at a big 
sacrifice so that she should avoid being in debt. The 
more we read about her the more we admire the re- 
ligion that created such a woman. As the years went 
on, and the income from her writings was not suffi- 
cient, she had to part with her pictures and with many 
other objects of art. And yet she did not worry about 
it. Her heart, after all, was not attached to the things 
of earth. 

As Fanny Kemble wrote after the death of Mrs. 
Craven, "She was a most sincere, devout Roman 
Catholic. Her books were written under a strong re- 
ligious feeling, and with the desire of influencing per- 
sons who thought differently from her on religious 
questions. The beauties and support of her belief 
were so real to her that her great wish was to make 
others see and feel them as she did." 

It was that same spirit of faith that made her ac- 
cept her trials. She wrote in 1880, when she was 
seventy-two: "To-day my renunciation of the world 
is at once voluntary and imperative. I only reappear 
in it when it is a duty, and I always undergo in it a 
sense of humiliation, and I have for a long time given 
up going to the theatre, which is so far different from 
other pleasures that one can enjoy a play at every age. 
Who knows if I might not have kept up these worldly 
habits if there had been no change in my fate? When 
I think of this, I bless our ruin and all the suffering 
and trouble which followed and which yet accom- 
pany it. It is certain that it helped me to break my 

[393] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

last ties with the world, as without our losses I know 
not if I should have had the courage to do so. It was 
good for me to be crushed by the cruelest impres- 
sions — impressions calculated to crucify my self-love; 
good for me that my futile tastes, not less than my 
pride, have been continuously and usefully mortified." 

In 1884 Mr. Craven died. It was the last link with 
the world. They had been married for more than fifty 
years, a tenderly devoted couple. Nothing is more 
affecting than her description of his last illness and 
death. When he was laid away it was with difficulty 
she took up the thread of her life again. 

But hers was not a nature to pause until the final 
rest. She went at life again. She still wrote, still 
kept up her correspondence with her friends, still was 
interested in all that concerned the welfare of the 
Church she so loved. So it went on till the end. 

She was eighty-three years old when the summons 
came. But it was only through the greatest suffering 
that she passed to her reward. She was stricken, and 
lay helpless, not being able even to speak for a year. 
She died on April 1, 1891. 

"When she was told that she was about to receive 
the last sacraments," writes one of her biographers, 
"those around her heard, in token of her acquiescence, 
her soft murmur, which was habitual, change to a sud- 
den cry of joy. When the sacred Host was brought 
to her, her body, which had been almost entirely in- 
ert, sought to rise, and her eyes lightened with a last 
flame. After that, all for her was finished. A few 

[394] 



PAULINE CRAVEN 

hours later, peacefully and without struggle, she re- 
joined in the bosom of God those good and delightful 
souls of whom she had told the story and immor- 
talized the memory. During her long career she had 
lived the life of the world, the life of letters, and the 
Christian life, and in each of these three very differ- 
ing lives she had equally excelled. Hers is a rare 
and perhaps an inimitable example of the supernatural 
harmony which can blend in one perfection the beauty 
of natural gifts, of the intellectual powers and of 
the spiritual being. , ' 

The year after her death the Abbe Mugnier said of 
her in a lecture to his students : "When in after times 
the Christian apologists of the day are counted, it 
will doubtless be found that it was a simple woman, 
without pretensions to theological learning, who best 
knew how to raise an imperishable monument to her 
faith, and hers were the passing and delicate materials 
of smiles, of kisses, and of tears." 

Pauline Craven surely is a great model. She was a 
noble wife through fifty years. Never blessed with 
children of her own, she was, nevertheless, truly a 
mother of souls, a guide to the throne of God. 



[395] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

THERE are many ways of serving God. Every 
one has his special talent to be employed in sanc- 
tifying his own soul and in helping to build the King- 
dom of Christ on earth. One has one vocation; an- 
other has another. Not all are called to enter the 
cloister. There have been queens whose vocation it 
was to be queens, who used their royal position to 
further the interests of the Church. 

And so in the history of Catholic womanhood we 
find a wonderful variety of service. There have been 
women who were raised up to do great works of char- 
ity, like Fabiola, who established the first hospital 
in the history of the world; to give womanhood and 
motherhood an example of loyalty to the faith even 
unto death, like Margaret Clitherow; to establish re- 
ligious communities, like St. Jane Frances de Chantal ; 
to be an example of sanctity in the humble home, like 
Anna Maria Taigi. In every department the wife and 
mother has been chosen by God to help in His work. 

Not the least among the wives and mothers who 
devoted themselves to the service of the true faith 
are the women who used their literary talent for the 
cause. Many of them deserve particular notice. 
There is, indeed, nothing new in this kind of serv- 

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SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ice. Almost from the beginning of the Church, we 
find Catholic women interested in the pursuit of learn- 
ing and in the cultivation of letters as means to spread 
the faith. The great intellectual giant, St. Augustine, 
did not think it a condescension to discuss philosoph- 
ical matters with his mother, or to write to Proba. St. 
Jerome was not above allowing the widow Paula to 
help him in his scriptural studies. It may be said that 
Paula established the first women's college. When St. 
Jerome came to Rome, it was in her house he found 
lodgings, to which she begged him to come in order 
that she and her family might be under his spiritual 
direction. In her house the Roman ladies used to 
meet in order to listen to St. Jerome read from the 
Scriptures, and so earnest did they become that he 
tells us that some of them wrote in Hebrew as per- 
fectly as in Greek and Latin. 

It was so, too, with the wealthy widow Proba, who 
was our first Catholic woman poet. Even before her 
conversion to the faith, she had written an epic cele- 
brating the wars between Constantine and Maxentius, 
a poem now lost. After her conversion she wrote a 
long sacred poem dealing with the chief events of the 
Old Testament, and with the life of Christ according 
to the Gospels. The poem is of interest now only as 
a literary curiosity, yet it served its purpose at the 
time in bringing the knowledge of the Gospel to 
others who otherwise might never have known it. 
Even as late as the middle ages it enjoyed popularity; 
but whatever its merit, we owe a tribute to the woman 

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GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

who wrote it, the woman of fabulous fortune, of 
highest social position, who used her literary talent 
and all that she had to glorify God. 

So has it been through all the ages. If we were 
dealing with the history of woman in education, we 
would see what a great part she played in the institu- 
tions of learning. Sometimes we hear about the mod- 
ern educational advantages of women; but these ad- 
vantages are not modern, not new. Hand in hand 
with religion there has always been science. Woman 
has enjoyed these advantages. We have instances of 
women holding the most learned chairs in the great 
universities. Not only that : even women in the home, 
while they considered literature and learning as but 
their secondary duties, were eager to cultivate their 
minds. We recall the admiration of the learned Eras- 
mus for the literary attainments of Margaret Roper, 
daughter of Sir Thomas More. Her knowledge of 
Latin astounded him. She and her sisters enjoyed a 
European reputation, and yet they were but simple, 
home-loving, pious Catholic women. So learned were 
they that once, in the royal presence of Henry VIII, 
they held a public philosophical disputation. 

But the list of professional writers, as we may call 
them, among our Catholic wives and mothers may 
be said to begin with the Italian poet, Vittoria Co- 
lonna, the most celebrated woman poet of Italy (1490- 

1547). 

She lived at the time of the Renaissance, and was 
one of its brightest jewels. It was a time famous for 

[398] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

its women, as for everything else. "They come be- 
fore us," says a certain writer, "adorned with that 
wonderful fifteenth-century teaching of which we, in 
these days when education is our most popular fetish, 
have no adequate conception, because we do not 
choose to cast our eyes back on the nobler past and 
see what it has to teach us. It is pitiful to hear women 
exult in the liberal training now provided for them, 
and yet to know that the curriculum of the high 
school, chiefly directed to the passing of examinations, 
would have been absolute intellectual starvation to 
the women of five centuries ago." Women in those 
days were highly educated, highly cultured, accom- 
plished in many ways. To know what society was 
learning in those days, and then to listen to assertions 
about the glorious educational advantages of the 
Reformation, is to laugh. 

A great representative of the womanhood of her 
time is Vittoria Colonna. She had beauty, birth, tal- 
ent, culture, piety; and she holds a prominent place 
in the history, the art, the religion, and the literature 
of her day. 

She was a daughter of one of the great Roman 
houses, the Colonna, a family celebrated and power- 
ful, which had given a pope and many cardinals to 
the Church, and many famous generals, statesmen, 
and scholars to the world. Her father was Fabrizio 
Colonna, high constable of Naples, a man who played 
an important part in his day, and her mother was the 

[399] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

younger daughter of the Duke of Urbino. She was 
born in the castle of the Colonnas at Marino. 

We know very little about her early years. It was 
a time of political struggle and warfare. At the age 
of four she was betrothed to a boy of the same age, 
Fernando d'Avalos, son of the Marchese de Pescara, 
descendant of the noblest Spanish and Neapolitan 
families. The marriage took place in 1509, when 
they were both nineteen years of age. In those 
days they were very happy together; life looked 
bright, they had intellectual tastes in common, and 
they were young and rich. Great rejoicings were held 
in their honor at Naples, and they settled down in a 
villa on Monte Sant' Ermo. 

Vittoria enjoyed two years of happiness, but after 
that her life was like a widowhood, for from that 
time till her husband's death in 1525 they were hardly 
ever together, owing to the fact that the Marchese 
was a soldier, and by the necessity of the warlike 
times was in the camp rather than at home. Vittoria's 
father was second in command of the Spanish army 
in Italy assisting the Pope against the French, and 
the Marchese went to join him as commander of 
the light-armed cavalry. He was a brave soldier, 
occupied high posts, and was popular with the army. 
Happy to serve her country, Vittoria willingly al- 
lowed him to depart, and remained at home herself, 
where, having no children of her own, she spent her 
time in looking after the education of her husband's 

[400] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

young orphaned cousin, who became like her own 
child. 

The spirit of this woman is shown in her loyalty 
to her husband's honor. After one of the great bat- 
tles in which he was victor, he became involved in a 
conspiracy, and was offered the crown of Naples if 
he turned against the Emperor. But she dissuaded 
him from his treason, preferring to sacrifice a crown 
rather than gain it by dishonor. There was no Lady 
Macbeth ambition in her. She declared that she pre- 
ferred to die the wife of a most brave marquis and a 
most upright general than to live the consort of a 
king dishonored with any stain of infamy. It was a 
decision that did honor to the heart of a great Catholic 
woman. 

The Marchese was finally wounded seriously at the 
battle of Pavia. He sent for his wife, but died be- 
fore she could reach him, while yet a young man, only 
thirty-six. When she heard of his death, she fell from 
her horse and remained in a state of unconsciousness 
for two hours. So great was her sorrow that she 
begged to be taken to a convent and given a nun's 
habit. She lay on the ground and could not be in- 
duced to eat. Her brother came to her assistance, and 
brought her to Rome, and there she went to live in 
the Convent of San Silvestro, where an ancestor of 
hers, the Blessed Margherita Colonna, was buried. 
She was grief-stricken over the loss of the man she 
so loved. It was, indeed, her grief that turned her 
attention to literature, since most of her poetry was 

[401] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

written as a tribute to his memory. In her writing 
she found a solace for her woes. At that time her one 
idea was to enter the religious life, for religion was 
the very key-note of her life. But God had other work 
for her to do. The glory of the life of the world 
was gone for her, buried in the grave with her hus- 
band. She might have lived the life of a great lady 
on her estates, she might have married again, and 
married well, but none of these things had any attrac- 
tion for her. Henceforth she lived in convent after 
convent, leading a life of almost monastic simplicity, 
her food and her dress of the simplest. With that sim- 
plicity went a great love for the poor. Indeed, she 
became as one of the poor herself, 

Yet at the same time she kept up her association 
with the world, and was interested in things spiritual 
and intellectual. She was blessed in her friends, and 
they in her. Who knows what her influence was in 
those trying days for the Church ! Among her friends 
were Pietro Bembo, Michelangelo, and other great 
men of the age, with whom she labored for the refor- 
mation of the evils that had fallen on the Church. 
One of her greatest friends in her last years was 
Cardinal Pole, to whom she declared that she owed 
the salvation of her soul, since he guided her at the 
time she was almost led astray by the new doctrines 
of the Reformation. 

She was adored by her own relations. It has been 
said of her: "She was indeed a woman to be proud 
of, untouched by scandal, unspoiled by praise, incapa- 

[402] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

ble of any ungenerous action, unconvicted of one un- 
charitable word. Living in the midst of such relig- 
ious and political dissension as divided and uprooted 
families, she yet preserved in all relations of life that 
jewel of perfect loyalty which does not ask to be 
justified." 

It was this sentiment of loyalty, no doubt, that 
drew from her heart her first poems in memory of her 
husband, which were the means of drawing to her 
the great friends that made her so famous, and which 
showed what a true woman she was. The history of 
her friends is the history of the Renaissance. Any 
woman who could inspire the friendship of such men 
as Michelangelo and Cardinal Pole must have been a 
great woman. The one thing that explains it is the 
deep religion of them all; that was the bond, more 
than talent and art. When she died, Michelangelo 
was for a long time overcome with grief. 

Her later poetry was almost entirely religious. In 
it she showed her great spirit of faith, especially in 
her chief poem, the Triumph of Christ. This was 
because her life was full of faith and piety. She even 
wore herself to a shadow by her mortifications. 

Vittoria was a great religious poet because she fol- 
lowed the life of the Cross. Her faith is seen in one 
of the prayers she composed : "Grant, I beseech Thee, 
O Lord, that I may always adore Thee with that 
abasement of soul which befits my humbleness, and 
with that exaltation of mind which Thy Majesty de- 
mands, and let me ever live in the fear which Thy 

[403] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

justice inspires and in the hope which Thy mercy 
allows, and submit to Thee as Almighty, yield myself 
to Thee as All-wise, and turn to Thee as to supreme 
Perfection and Goodness. I beseech Thee, most ten- 
der Father, that Thy most loving fire may purify me, 
that Thy most clear light may illumine me, and that 
Thy most pure love may so avail me that, without 
let or hindrance of mortal things, I may return to 
Thee in happiness and security." 

When she was about to die — Michelangelo was with 
her at the time — she made a will giving a large sum 
to charity, and requesting that she be buried among 
the nuns. She died in 1547. 

Whatever may be thought of her poetry, it is cer- 
tain that Vittoria Colonna will endure as an example 
of true Christian virtue, a type of the Christian widow 
who devoted all she had, all she was, to the service 
of God and the help of souls. 

A woman who occupies a high place in the world 
of letters on account of her correspondence, which is 
but an expression of her maternal devotion, is Ma- 
dame de Sevigne. Lamartine, on account of her de- 
votion to her daughter, has placed her among the 
great civilizers of the world. Yet, classic as her 
mother-letters have become, it is rather as a woman of 
virtue amid examples of vice that she makes her great- 
est appeal to us. Madame de Sevigne would be of 
interest if only for the fact that she was the 
granddaughter of the famous St. Jane Frances de 
Chantal. 

[404] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

We recall that when St. Jane was leaving her home, 
in order to take up the work to which God called her, 
her son, then a mere boy, threw himself across the 
threshold and weepingly implored her to remain with 
him; but not even that appeal of affection could turn 
her from the call of God. This boy grew up into a 
handsome, reckless, accomplished, but devout man, 
afraid of nothing. He became the Baron de Chantal, 
and married Marie de Coulanges, a pious and gentle 
girl, who was very wealthy. He died in battle at the 
age of thirty-one, leaving his heart-broken widow and 
an only child, who afterwards became the celebrated 
Madame de Sevigne. The young widow died shortly 
afterwards, and the little girl was placed under the 
care of her uncle, her mother's brother, the Abbe de 
Coulanges, whom the child grew to love and with 
whom she was associated for more than fifty years. 
The Abbe returned her love, and saw to it that she 
received a fine education. Besides her native French, 
she knew Latin, Italian, and Spanish. The Abbe was 
a man of piety and learning, so one can imagine the 
kind of instruction he gave his niece. 

When she was fifteen (she was born in 1626), she 
was introduced to Parisian society. Learned and 
modest, wealthy and beautiful, she created a real sen- 
sation. She had many fine offers, but set them all 
aside in order to marry the young Marquis de Se- 
vigne, handsome, dashing, courageous, the kind that 
appeals to a romantic girl. He was selfish and sensual, 
but she loved him devotedly even though he was not 

[405] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

really in love with her. He had a good position at 
court. It was a brilliant, dazzling world at the time, 
and the handsome young couple found an immediate 
welcome into it. Bossuet, Corneille, and other fa- 
mous men belonged to the society of her day. Every- 
where there were wits, orators, writers. And every- 
where, too, there was vice. She found herself in a 
society composed of pedants — it was the time of the 
precieuses, or "blue-stockings"— and gay livers. 

Yet in spite of the surrounding vice, nothing ever 
sullied her fair name. She was deeply in love with 
her husband, even though he was unworthy of that 
love. But her heart soon began to be heavy, for she 
discovered that the man she loved was faithless to 
her; he even told her openly that he could not love 
her, adding insult to injury. In order to reclaim him 
she persuaded him to retire with her to their estate 
in Brittany. It was a sacrifice for her to leave the 
gay world of Paris and bury herself among rustics, 
but she made it gladly in the hope of winning his love. 
She was twenty, and he twenty-four. There they 
passed three years, and there her two children, a son 
and a daughter, were born. 

When the civil war of the Fronde broke out, the 
Marquis was recalled to Paris. It meant new slights, 
new insults for her on the part of the inconstant hus- 
band. He dissipated his fortune, and at last she was 
driven to get a separation from him, and went into 
retirement, a disillusioned woman. 

Here she received the news that he had been killed 
[406] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

in a duel over an unworthy love affair. She was now 
a widow at twenty-three, grief -stricken after the hus- 
band she had always loved in spite of his wickedness 
and his squandering of her fortune. These years she 
devoted to the education of her children, and finally, 
after an absence of four or five years, as beautiful as 
ever, she returned to Paris society. It was the age 
of Corneille, Racine, Moliere, La Fontaine, and Boi- 
leau, and it was a tribute to her that she was sought 
by everybody for her learning, her wit, her beauty, 
and her common sense. She was soon besieged by 
many suitors, some of them of princely rank, but she 
refused them all. She lived at court and numbered 
the highest ladies as her friends, but her heart was 
centered in her children, and especially in her daugh- 
ter, who was soon famous as "the prettiest girl in 
France. ,, The daughter was finally married to the 
Comte de Grignan, a man of good reputation and fine 
family. It was this marriage that was the occasion of 
the letters which have made Madame de Sevigne a 
classic in French literature. 

The Comte de Grignan was obliged to live in the 
south of France, and this meant the separation of the 
mother and daughter. The mother idolized her 
daughter; she could not become accustomed to the 
separation, and bore it only because she had to. One 
cannot help contrasting this kind of affection with 
that of her grandmother, St. Jane, who could even 
step over the prostrate body of her son in order to 
enter religion. 

[407] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Madame de Sevigne wrote to her daughter three 
or four times a week, sometimes twice a day, for 
twenty-seven years. She actually lived for her child 
with a love that has rarely been paralleled. It filled 
her life in place of many unworthy things that might 
have come to a grand lady of the salon whose house 
was the center of a gay world. Nor is it surprising 
to know that while she was always a pious woman, she 
became particularly devout in her later years, a worthy 
descendant of a great saint. 

When her beloved daughter was taken ill, Madame 
de Sevigne went to Provence to nurse her. She 
was then, 1696, nearly seventy years of age, and it 
was winter. Night and day for three months she 
tended her, and then she herself was seized with the 
smallpox and died. Her letters are still regarded as 
the most charming in existence, surely a tribute to 
the mother-love that inspired them. 

One biographer thus describes her : "A French wo- 
man with none of the vices and little of the frivolity 
of French women, a true Louis-Quatorzienne without 
the prejudices of that reign, a woman of society and 
one of its leaders, yet a prodigy of domestic affection, 
a frequenter of the court but a lover of the fields, a 
wit without attempting it, and a great writer without 
knowing it, Marie de Sevigne has justly won the ad- 
miration of every great man who appreciates wit 
and honors virtue. ,, 

One always thinks kindly of the grand lady, the 
[408] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

afflicted wife, and the devoted mother, the grand- 
daughter of St. Jane Frances de Chantal. 

The influence which Madame Swetchine had on 
her circle is similar to that which Vittoria Colonna had 
on hers. 

She was born Anne Sophie Soymonoff, at Moscow, 
in 1782, where her father was then private secretary 
to the Empress Catherine II. Both her father and 
mother were of distinguished families, and their 
daughter may be said to have inherited her great tal- 
ents. When Paul I came to the throne, the young 
Anne was appointed maid of honor to his Empress 
Marie, and thus grew up at court, where the family 
had an apartment in the imperial palace at St. Peters- 
burg, and where she received all the advantages a 
young girl could receive. Her father was a grave 
and learned man, and, noting the talent of the child, 
gave her a fine education in everything but religion. 
She was taught music and drawing, and at fourteen 
she knew Russian, English, Italian, French, German, 
and, moreover, was studying Latin, Greek, and He- 
brew — rather a big program for a girl of her age. 
Later on she developed a remarkable voice and used 
to accompany herself on the piano with great skill. 
She was evidently of extraordinary talent. 

At that time politics were uncertain, and the country 
was in an unsettled condition; in order, therefore, that 
she might have a protector, the father arranged a 
marriage between her and General Swetchine. He 
was forty-two, and she seventeen. Soon after the 

[409] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

marriage her father was dismissed from St. Peters- 
burg and returned to Moscow, where he died sud- 
denly. It was Madame Swetchine's first trial, and 
it drew from her her first real prayer. 

General Swetchine was a man of fine character. 
It is told of him that once he was entrusted by the 
Emperor to execute a sentence which was barbarous 
and unjust upon a colonel of the Russian army. 
The General went to the square where the man was 
waiting and told him that he had been reprieved, gave 
him back his sword, and commanded him to leave 
Russia at once. Then he returned to Paul's apart- 
ment and said to him: "Sire, here is my head. I 
have not fulfilled your Majesty's command. Colo- 
nel is free. I have restored to him honor and 

life. Take mine instead." The Emperor was furious, 
but finally forgave the General. Later, however, he 
fell into disgrace, and retired to his country estates 
with his wife, where she read everything she could 
lay her hands on until she became one of the most 
educated and intellectual women of the age. 

At her salon all the great men of international rep- 
utation could be found, for after the accession of 
Alexander she returned to St. Petersburg. During 
the sorrow she had experienced at the death of her 
father she had become very religious, even though 
she was still a member of the Greek Church. But 
in that brilliant society there were many French emi- 
gres, some of whom had been given places of trust. 
Several of the eminent French clergy were there, with 

[410] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

some Jesuits, all of whom were having a silent in- 
fluence upon her. Her salon was the center of cul- 
ture. Among those who had an influence upon her 
was the Comte de Maistre, whose strong Catholic 
faith appealed to her. In 1811 the General returned 
to active service against the French. All the while 
she kept up her studies, and at last she was led to 
a consideration of the claims of the Catholic Church. 
She retired to the country to think out the matter 
for herself. During all that autumn and winter she 
read history and dogma, going through great tomes 
that would have daunted another. She was sin- 
cere in her search for the truth, and copied out whole 
books, one might say libraries. 

The Princess Galitzin had become a Catholic in 
the meantime, and was praying for the conversion 
of her friend Madame Swetchine. At last the light 
came, and she also made her submission to the Church. 
She was at the time thirty-three years of age. It 
was an act that required a great deal of courage, for 
it was a time when Catholics were suspected at court. 
But Madame Swetchine did not mince matters. She 
was a Catholic through and through, and openly pro- 
fessed her change of faith. The Jesuits were pro- 
scribed at that time, and this injustice made her so 
indignant that she came to their aid financially and 
even pleaded for them before the court. She had 
great influence with the Emperor, and this, as well 
as her conversion, aroused the resentment of the 
bigots against her. Finally things became so unbear- 

[411] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

able through the plots set on foot against the General 
that they decided to leave Russia. They went to 
Paris, where they remained for six months, and then 
returned to Russia for a year. But she found the 
prejudice so bitter against the Catholic Church that 
they finally left Russia for good and made their home 
in Paris. 

Her home became one of the most attractive cen- 
ters of Paris society. Here congregated all the learn- 
ing and piety of the great capital. She was then, 
as always, a fascinating woman, and drew people to 
her by her boundless power of sympathy. Even the 
women idolized her. She liked studies of the heaviest 
kind, yet she also liked to have young and pretty 
women about her. The young girls used to come 
to her to show her their dresses on the way to the 
ball, and afterwards with their griefs to ask her ad- 
vice. She knew how to advise, and could give ear to 
the griefs of others. 

At the time of the Revolution of 1830 there arose 
the question of the relations of the Church to the 
new government. It was then that a group of young 
men arose to proclaim the entire freedom of the 
Church. It was the famous group of "L'Avenir." 
One of the leading spirits of the movement was the 
famous Father Lacordaire, who was introduced to 
Madame Swetchine by Montalembert. This great wo- 
man and fervent Catholic soon saw in him, says Mon- 
talembert, a son of predilection, and "concentrated on 
his head, already storm-beaten in spite of his youth- 

[412] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

fulness, all the force of tender solicitude and close 
sympathy which her noble, upright soul contained. 
For a quarter of a century she continued to be the; 
guide, the counselor, and the healer of his struggling, 
agitated temperament, which grew calm and self- 
possessed beneath her softening influence. Nothing 
ever marred the blessed union of those two hearts, of 
that mother and son, who were so worthy of each 
other; a union so characteristically defined by La- 
cordaire when he said, 'I never met any one with such 
a thoroughly bold spirit of freedom confined within 
so solid a faith/ " 

The great sermons which he preached in Notre 
Dame were due to her inspiration. She used to go 
there to listen to him, and sat behind a column, where 
she was pointed out by those who did not know her 
as his mother. Lacordaire says of her: "Madame 
Swetchine received me with a friendliness quite un- 
like the ordinary world's ways, and I soon grew 
accustomed to tell her all my troubles, my anxieties 
and plans. She used to enter into them as though 
I were her son, and her door was open to me even 
at those times when she rarely received her most in- 
timate friends. What could have led her to devote 
her time and counsels to me? Doubtless some hid- 
den sympathy moved her at first; but if I am not 
mistaken, she was confirmed in the course by the con- 
sciousness of having a mission to fulfil in me. She 
saw me surrounded by dangers, guided so far by my 
own inspirations, without worldly experience, without 

[413] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

other compass to steer by than my own pure inten- 
tions, and she felt that in becoming a second Provi- 
dence to me she was doing God's work. From that 
day, in truth, I never made any decision without dis- 
cussing it with her, and I owe it to her that I have 
stood at the edge of many a precipice without falling 
over. ,, So great was her interest in the work he had 
been raised up to accomplish that knowing how lim- 
ited were his means, she tried to persuade him to 
come and live at her house, an invitation which he, 
however, declined. 

And all the time she had her own share of trials. 
Her adopted daughter, whom she so loved, had died, 
an affliction soon followed by the death of her brother- 
in-law. Then her sister, to whom she was so greatly 
attached, settled in Moscow, a separation which came 
hard to Madame Swetchine. But all these trials 
brought her closer to God. Her life became even 
austere. 

Every day she went to Mass in the parish church, 
and at other times found her chief refuge in her 
chapel, where she spent her time almost continually 
in meditation and prayer. With that devotion went 
a great charity; she visited the poor in their homes, 
cared for the children, and interested herself in the 
institutions of charity, and all with an entire absence 
of ostentation. 

The General died suddenly at the age of ninety- 
two. They had ever been a devoted, loving couple, 
and she was heart-broken at the loss. But again 

[414] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

the sorrow only drew her nearer God. After his 
death she gradually grew weaker. In fact, she had 
been a sufferer for thirty years, enduring pain every 
day, scarcely ever sleeping through nights of agony. 
Yet that suffering never lessened her interest in those 
she could help. Even to the end she continued her 
self-examination. To one of her friends, who told 
her she was going to pray for her, she said : "Thank 
you, my good friend, thank you; but do not ask God 
for one day more or one pang less." "For many 
years," she once said, "my real and, I might almost 
say, my only trouble has been when I have not known 
or have failed to comprehend God's will in regard 
to me. However, I have all trust in His mercy ; and 
in my present state trust seems my only means of 
glorifying Him." 

When Lacordaire heard of her serious illness he 
hastened to her, and spent six days in constant at- 
tendance upon her. She was gradually growing 
weaker, but nothing interfered with her piety, daily 
Mass, frequent Communion, and meditation, some- 
times of hours, in the chapel. He celebrated Mass 
several times for her and gave her Communion. He 
was not with her when she died, although many of 
her last thoughts and words were of him. It was 
like the friendship of Jerome and Paula, as Lacor- 
daire himself said. After her death he wrote of her: 
"Hers was a first-rate intellect, and her heart was 
full of kindness, faith, devotion, and love." 

And so died Madame Swetchine, one of the great- 
[415] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

est women that ever lived. Her fame is enduring, 
even though she never had a thought for it. She 
always sought to hide her private life from the world. 
Yet in all her humility the influence exerted by her 
was extraordinary, that on Lacordaire being but an 
example among many. Who can estimate the good 
she did in that salon of hers, where from three to 
six, and again from nine to midnight, all the dis- 
tinguished men of the day gathered, among them 
Chateaubriand, Cuvier, Cousin, Tocqueville, and many 
others. She was full of faith, almost a mystic, and 
her spirit radiated holiness to all who came in con- 
tact with her. With her, all was the faith. 

"My faith," she said, "is to me what Benjamin 
was to Rachel, the child of my sorrow." Yet more 
than that, the child of her joy. She was all that de 
Maistre described her when, at the time she first came 
to Paris, he wrote thus to one of his friends: "In 
a short time you will see at Paris a Russian lady 
whom I especially commend to you. Never will you 
see such moral strength, wit, and learning joined to 
such goodness." 

Hers was an influence that has been felt even by 
those not of the faith for which she sacrificed so much. 
The Protestant who wrote the preface of her Life, 
written by her friend Falloux, pays her a glowing 
tribute. "As a character," says he, "Madame 
Swetchine must henceforth hold a front place among 
the most powerful, original, pure, and fascinating re- 
vealed in all history. The combination in her of 

[416] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

natural force, intense passion, acquired knowledge, 
resignation, and repose is truly wonderful. The pic- 
ture of her steady progress from the perturbations of 
earthly and personal desires towards the perfection of 
saintly virtue and peace is charming in its portrayal 
and divine in its significance. . . . The character and 
life of Madame Swetchine, her lonely studies and 
aspirations, her sublime personal attainments, her 
philanthropic labors, her literary productions, her 
sweet social charm and vast influence, her thrice-royal 
friendships with kings and geniuses and saints, the 
sober raptures of her religious faith and fruition, form 
an example whose exciting and edifying interest and 
value are scarcely surpassed in the annals of her sex." 
Catholic womanhood may well be proud of having 
produced Madame Swetchine. 

Coming down almost to our own day, we find in 
the life of Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn an instance of 
a wife and mother who nobly answered the call of 
God, and in doing it sacrificed much of that fame 
which the world holds so dear. Born in 1805, she 
was descended from a family that was at one time 
the wealthiest and the most illustrious of the Meck- 
lenburg nobility. Her father had squandered his for- 
tune upon the theater, for which he had a passion, and 
finally had to be placed under a guardian. Her par- 
ents were both Protestants, and she was brought up 
in a slipshod manner, receiving very little education. 
At twenty-one she married her cousin, Count von 
Hahn. It was an unhappy marriage. There was no 

[417] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

love between them, and after three years the mar- 
riage ended in the divorce court, leaving her with an 
only child, mentally and physically deformed, and 
hence a constant source of anxiety to her. After the 
divorce she went to live with her mother, but soon 
left home and traveled nearly all over the world. 
Those twenty years of her life from 1829 to 1849 
were far from edifying, and her reputation was not 
above suspicion. But one day the grace of God rilled 
her. She opened her Bible at random and read the 
words in Isaias lx, 1 : "Arise, be enlightened, O 
Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of 
the Lord is risen upon thee." She took that as the 
voice of God to her soul, communed with herself 
and prayed, and after several months determined to 
become a Catholic. On account of her previous rep- 
utation she was made to undergo a severe test before 
being admitted to the Church, but at length was bap- 
tized by Bishop von Ketteler in 1850. She then went 
to live with the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at 
Mainz, where she had helped in the establishment of 
a convent almost at her own expense. 

It was one of the most notable conversions of the 
time, for the Countess Hahn-Hahn had already ac- 
quired a position as a writer. But of that fame she 
made little. She even condemned her previous books, 
an act which required more courage than one can 
suppose. It was the destruction of the labor of years, 
and only a hero could submit to such a sacrifice. But 
the act was only in keeping with her faith. To her 

[418] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

the faith she had received was everything. To that 
she now devoted her talent, and for the last thirty 
years of her life, filled as they were with great piety, 
she wrote nothing but books with a high purpose, try- 
ing in that way to help the cause of the Church and 
to atone for what she considered the sins of her pen 
before she had seen the light. 

It would be an endless task to give even the names 
of the books written by her. She was a tireless 
worker, and her output was enormous. It is a mar- 
vel how she accomplished so much, for she was often 
a great sufferer. The only explanation of her ac- 
complishments is her zeal for the faith. She died 
in 1880, at the age of seventy-five, a wife and mother 
who was above all a loyal Catholic to whom no sac- 
rifice was too great if it could help to sanctify her 
soul. 

In previous papers we have studied the character 
and work of Mrs. Craven and Lady Georgiana Ful- 
lerton, and there is no need to review their lives here. 
One of their contemporaries was Lady Herbert of 
Lea, a convert, who gave her great literary talent to 
the service of the Church. When she was received 
into the Church, Lady Fullerton wrote to her as 
follows : 

"My dear Lady Herbert : 

"As you sent me a kind message by Lady London- 
derry, I venture to write and tell you with what sin- 
cere joy and gratitude to God I heard of your being 

[419] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

actually received into His Church, to which you have 
long been in heart devoted. I have now been just 
nineteen years a Catholic, and have never ceased to 
wonder with an adoring heart at the infinite mercy 
of God in bestowing on one so unworthy as myself 
that blessed gift of faith not vouchsafed to so many 
who would make a better use of it. You have a great 
part of life before you, and He who has called you 
into His Church will, I trust, give you many years 
to work for Him and to bring many others to the 
faith. It gave me great pleasure to hear that you 
were affiliated to the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. 
So have I been for the last three years, and I am 
happy to think we shall have a common object of in- 
terest. I suppose you have to look to many trials 
and many heartaches in consequence of your conver- 
sion, but I doubt not that strength and courage will 
be given you to bear whatever cross it may please 
our Blessed Lord to lay upon you. May such crosses 
be lightened and sweetened by heavenly consolations ! 
Believe me, I may venture to say so now, when, al- 
though we have not very often met, we are linked 
by the same faith." 

With these women it was always the faith! Lady 
Fullerton's prophecy was fulfilled. Lady Herbert did 
have a great many years before her in which to work 
for the faith she loved so well. She was born, in 
1822, Elizabeth A'Court, the daughter of General 
A'Court, a soldier and member of Parliament. This, 

[420] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

together with the fact that she was the niece of Lord 
Heytesbury, British ambassador at St. Petersburg, 
gave her a firm place in early Victorian society. At 
the age of twenty-four she married Sidney Herbert, 
a brilliant young politician, the second son of the 
Earl of Pembroke. She was deeply interested in all 
his work, especially when he was made Secretary of 
War during the Crimean campaign. She became 
noted at that time for her help to Florence Nightin- 
gale. Her husband, who had been created Baron 
Herbert of Lea, died in 1861, leaving her with four 
sons and three daughters. 

Cardinal Manning had been a friend of her hus- 
band, and it was through his influence that in 1866 
she became a Catholic. She was not a half-hearted 
convert. Gratitude for the gift of faith made her 
a militant Catholic and in spite of her many home 
duties she interested herself in all that affected the 
Church. Gifted with fine ability as a writer, she gave 
that talent wholly to religion, and produced numer- 
ous books, most of which were popular at the time 
of their publication and are still widely read. There 
is always something human in a book of Lady Her- 
bert of Lea. Many of those books will hold a per- 
manent place in standard Catholic literature. She died 
in 191 1, at the age of eighty-nine, after forty-five 
years of labor, from the time of her conversion, in 
the service of the Catholic Church. She was a noble 
wife and mother, and a fervent Catholic. 

The great work done for Catholic letters by Mrs. 
[421] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

Craven in France and by Lady Fullerton in England 
was equaled and in many ways surpassed by Mrs. 
Sadlier in America. Her whole life was given to 
the cause of Catholic literature. The very magni- 
tude of her work is astounding. From her pen came 
more than sixty volumes, besides all the journalistic 
work she did, and all of this was done with the high- 
est purpose, not for literary fame, but to serve the 
Church at a time when it needed just such service as 
she could give. 

The Catholic Church in the United States and Can- 
ada owes a great deal to this woman, who helped to 
preserve the faith in many at a time when they en- 
dured great temptations. To-day we cannot pick up 
an old book of hers without thinking of the Catholic 
immigrants who were made prouder of their faith 
by her stories. She was born Mary Anne Madden, in 
County Cavan, Ireland, in 1820. Her father was 
a merchant, and of the old Irish school of book-loving 
people. In the beginning it was his encouragement 
that kept her writing. Even as a girl she had some 
of her work published in a London magazine. When 
the father died in 1844 she went to Montreal, where, 
two years later, at the age of twenty-six, she married 
James Sadlier, of the celebrated firm of that name 
which has done so much for Catholic letters. For 
fourteen years she lived there, writing continually, 
until her name soon became a household word in 
Catholic families. After that the family came to New 
York City, where, besides the publishing business, they 

[422] 



SOME LITERARY WIVES AND MOTHERS 

owned a weekly paper, The Tablet, for which she 
wrote editorials as well as stories. Her husband died 
nine years later, and a few years after that she re- 
turned to Montreal, where she lived until her death, 
in 1903, at the age of eighty-three. 

It was an uneventful life as far as external events 
are concerned, but it was a life of labor, a life of 
service for others. Not only was she a woman of 
strong faith herself, but a woman who knew the need 
of helping others to keep their faith. One could not 
write the history of the glories of the Catholic Church 
in the United States without giving a high place to 
this great pioneer, Mrs. Sadlier. 

Another woman in this country who gave herself 
unsparingly to the cause of Catholic letters was Mrs. 
Dorsey. She was born at Georgetown, D. C, in 
181 5, the daughter of a minister, the Rev. William 
McKenney, a chaplain in the navy. In 1837 she was 
married to Lorenzo Dorsey. Three years later she 
became' a convert to the Church, and from that time 
on for more than fifty years she devoted her life to 
writing Catholic fiction. Her name is a classic in 
Catholic literature. God had evidently raised her up 
for the work in which she excelled. She had four 
children, a son who was killed in the Civil War, and 
three daughters who survived her. She died in 1896, 
at the age of eighty-one. Surely a great wife and 
mother. She had her family duties, yet she found 
time to serve the Church and her fellow-Catholics. 
Her name is a benediction among us. 

[423] 



GREAT WIVES AND MOTHERS 

The last in our list of famous wives and mothers 
who have served the Church by their pen is Mrs. 
Craigie, known in literature under her pen-name of 
"John Oliver Hobbes." She was born Pearl Richards 
in Quincy, Mass., in 1867, of an old family of Colonial 
descent. At the age of nineteen she married Regi- 
nald Walpole Craigie, an English gentleman of good 
family, but the marriage was unhappy and she soon 
obtained a divorce, or rather separation, with the cus- 
tody of her child. In 1891 she published her first 
book, which created quite a sensation. All the while 
she had been studying the Catholic religion, and in 
1892 was received into the Church. From that time 
on her work was noted for its deep religious strain. 
When she was at the height of her fame, with an 
assured place in English literature, she died suddenly 
of heart disease in 1906, at the age of thirty-nine. 

It is a glorious line, these women who were apostles 
of the faith. One must marvel at them. They were 
wives, many of them mothers; they had their posi- 
tion in the world; they had talent which might have 
given them a high place in secular letters. But their 
one thought, even more than for family and fame, was 
the Church. They became mothers of souls, striving 
to bring others to God; and, surely, whatever fame 
they may have attained in this world is little in com- 
parison with the undying glory they have acquired in 
the Kingdom of God, to which they gave their all. 



[424] 



'Life is too short for reading inferior books." — Bryce 



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THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY, Publishers 

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